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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Quintanilla, Andrea, Van Horebeek, Johan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18262
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author Quintanilla, Andrea
Van Horebeek, Johan
author_facet Quintanilla, Andrea
Van Horebeek, Johan
contents Given the high computational complexity of decision tree estimation, classical methods construct a tree by adding one node at a time in a recursive way. To facilitate promoting fairness, we propose a fairness criterion local to the tree nodes. We prove how it is related to the Statistical Parity criterion, popular in the Algorithmic Fairness literature, and show how to incorporate it into standard recursive tree estimation algorithms. We present a tree estimation algorithm called Constrained Logistic Regression Tree (C-LRT), which is a modification of the standard CART algorithm using locally linear classifiers and imposing restrictions as done in Constrained Logistic Regression. Finally, we evaluate the performance of trees estimated with C-LRT on datasets commonly used in the Algorithmic Fairness literature, using various classification and fairness metrics. The results confirm that C-LRT successfully allows to control and balance accuracy and fairness.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_18262
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Local Statistical Parity for the Estimation of Fair Decision Trees
Quintanilla, Andrea
Van Horebeek, Johan
Machine Learning
Given the high computational complexity of decision tree estimation, classical methods construct a tree by adding one node at a time in a recursive way. To facilitate promoting fairness, we propose a fairness criterion local to the tree nodes. We prove how it is related to the Statistical Parity criterion, popular in the Algorithmic Fairness literature, and show how to incorporate it into standard recursive tree estimation algorithms. We present a tree estimation algorithm called Constrained Logistic Regression Tree (C-LRT), which is a modification of the standard CART algorithm using locally linear classifiers and imposing restrictions as done in Constrained Logistic Regression. Finally, we evaluate the performance of trees estimated with C-LRT on datasets commonly used in the Algorithmic Fairness literature, using various classification and fairness metrics. The results confirm that C-LRT successfully allows to control and balance accuracy and fairness.
title Local Statistical Parity for the Estimation of Fair Decision Trees
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18262