Shift-Dispersion Decompositions of Wasserstein and Cramér Distances

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Resin, Johannes, Wolffram, Daniel, Bracher, Johannes, Dimitriadis, Timo
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Resin, Johannes
Wolffram, Daniel
Bracher, Johannes
Dimitriadis, Timo
author_facet Resin, Johannes
Wolffram, Daniel
Bracher, Johannes
Dimitriadis, Timo
contents Divergence functions are measures of distance or dissimilarity between probability distributions that serve various purposes in statistics and applications. We propose decompositions of Wasserstein and Cramér distances$-$which compare two distributions by integrating over their differences in distribution or quantile functions$-$into directed shift and dispersion components. These components are obtained by dividing the differences between the quantile functions into contributions arising from shift and dispersion, respectively. Our decompositions add information on how the distributions differ in a condensed form and consequently enhance the interpretability of the underlying divergences. We show that our decompositions satisfy a number of natural properties and are unique in doing so in location-scale families. The decompositions allow to derive sensitivities of the divergence measures to changes in location and dispersion, and they give rise to weak stochastic order relations that are linked to the usual stochastic and the dispersive order. Our theoretical developments are illustrated in two applications, where we focus on forecast evaluation of temperature extremes and on the design of probabilistic surveys in economics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_09770
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Shift-Dispersion Decompositions of Wasserstein and Cramér Distances
Resin, Johannes
Wolffram, Daniel
Bracher, Johannes
Dimitriadis, Timo
Methodology
Probability
Statistics Theory
Divergence functions are measures of distance or dissimilarity between probability distributions that serve various purposes in statistics and applications. We propose decompositions of Wasserstein and Cramér distances$-$which compare two distributions by integrating over their differences in distribution or quantile functions$-$into directed shift and dispersion components. These components are obtained by dividing the differences between the quantile functions into contributions arising from shift and dispersion, respectively. Our decompositions add information on how the distributions differ in a condensed form and consequently enhance the interpretability of the underlying divergences. We show that our decompositions satisfy a number of natural properties and are unique in doing so in location-scale families. The decompositions allow to derive sensitivities of the divergence measures to changes in location and dispersion, and they give rise to weak stochastic order relations that are linked to the usual stochastic and the dispersive order. Our theoretical developments are illustrated in two applications, where we focus on forecast evaluation of temperature extremes and on the design of probabilistic surveys in economics.
title Shift-Dispersion Decompositions of Wasserstein and Cramér Distances
topic Methodology
Probability
Statistics Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.09770