Distributionally Robust Optimization using Cost-Aware Ambiguity Sets

Abstract: We present a novel framework for distributionally robust optimization (DRO), called cost-aware DRO (CADRO). The key idea of CADRO is to exploit the cost structure in the design of the ambiguity set to reduce conservatism. Particularly, the set specifically constrains the worst-case distribution along the direction in which the expected cost of an approximate solution increases most rapidly. We prove that CADRO provides both a high-confidence upper bound and a consistent estimator of the out-of-sample expected cost, and show empirically that it produces solutions that are substantially less conservative than existing DRO methods, while providing the same guarantees.