Estimation of Directed Acyclic Graphs by Frequentist Model Averaging

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Hauptverfasser: Liu, Huihang, Li, Wenhui, Zhang, Xinyu
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Liu, Huihang
Li, Wenhui
Zhang, Xinyu
author_facet Liu, Huihang
Li, Wenhui
Zhang, Xinyu
contents Directed acyclic graphs provide a fundamental tool for representing directed dependence structures in multivariate network data, and are widely used to model financial and economic networks. However, accurate and interpretable estimation remains challenging under graph structural uncertainty. We propose an optimal model averaging method for directed acyclic Gaussian graphs. With a set of candidate models varying by graph structures, we average estimates from candidate models using weights that minimize a penalized negative log-likelihood criterion. In contrast to existing approaches, we not only establish the asymptotic optimality, weight consistency, and parameter consistency of the proposed method, but also explicitly characterize how different candidate models affect the convergence rate. Moreover, we prove parameter consistency even when all candidate graph models are misspecified. Results from simulation studies and a real-data analysis on the banks' international liability data show the promise of the proposed method.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_25496
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Estimation of Directed Acyclic Graphs by Frequentist Model Averaging
Liu, Huihang
Li, Wenhui
Zhang, Xinyu
Methodology
62H22, 62H12, 62R07
Directed acyclic graphs provide a fundamental tool for representing directed dependence structures in multivariate network data, and are widely used to model financial and economic networks. However, accurate and interpretable estimation remains challenging under graph structural uncertainty. We propose an optimal model averaging method for directed acyclic Gaussian graphs. With a set of candidate models varying by graph structures, we average estimates from candidate models using weights that minimize a penalized negative log-likelihood criterion. In contrast to existing approaches, we not only establish the asymptotic optimality, weight consistency, and parameter consistency of the proposed method, but also explicitly characterize how different candidate models affect the convergence rate. Moreover, we prove parameter consistency even when all candidate graph models are misspecified. Results from simulation studies and a real-data analysis on the banks' international liability data show the promise of the proposed method.
title Estimation of Directed Acyclic Graphs by Frequentist Model Averaging
topic Methodology
62H22, 62H12, 62R07
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.25496