An iterated $I$-projection procedure for solving the generalized minimum information checkerboard copula problem

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Kojadinovic, Ivan, Martini, Tommaso
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866909005492781056
author Kojadinovic, Ivan
Martini, Tommaso
author_facet Kojadinovic, Ivan
Martini, Tommaso
contents The minimum information copula principle initially suggested in \cite{MeeBed97} is a maximum entropy-like approach for finding the least informative copula, if it exists, that satisfies a certain number of expectation constraints specified either from domain knowledge or the available data. We first propose a generalization of this principle allowing the inclusion of additional constraints fixing certain higher-order margins of the copula. We next show that the associated optimization problem has a unique solution under a natural condition. As the latter problem is intractable in general we consider its version with all the probability measures involved in its formulation replaced by checkerboard approximations. This amounts to attempting to solve a so-called discrete $I$-projection linear problem. We then exploit the seminal results of \cite{Csi75} to derive an iterated procedure for solving the latter and provide theoretical guarantees for its convergence. The usefulness of the procedure is finally illustrated via numerical experiments in dimensions up to four with substantially finer discretizations than those encountered in the literature.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_02829
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle An iterated $I$-projection procedure for solving the generalized minimum information checkerboard copula problem
Kojadinovic, Ivan
Martini, Tommaso
Probability
Statistics Theory
60E05, 62B11, 65K10
The minimum information copula principle initially suggested in \cite{MeeBed97} is a maximum entropy-like approach for finding the least informative copula, if it exists, that satisfies a certain number of expectation constraints specified either from domain knowledge or the available data. We first propose a generalization of this principle allowing the inclusion of additional constraints fixing certain higher-order margins of the copula. We next show that the associated optimization problem has a unique solution under a natural condition. As the latter problem is intractable in general we consider its version with all the probability measures involved in its formulation replaced by checkerboard approximations. This amounts to attempting to solve a so-called discrete $I$-projection linear problem. We then exploit the seminal results of \cite{Csi75} to derive an iterated procedure for solving the latter and provide theoretical guarantees for its convergence. The usefulness of the procedure is finally illustrated via numerical experiments in dimensions up to four with substantially finer discretizations than those encountered in the literature.
title An iterated $I$-projection procedure for solving the generalized minimum information checkerboard copula problem
topic Probability
Statistics Theory
60E05, 62B11, 65K10
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.02829