Combining Evidence Across Filtrations Using Adjusters (2402.09698v2)
Abstract: In anytime-valid sequential inference, it is known that any admissible procedure must be based on e-processes, which are composite generalizations of test martingales that quantify the accumulated evidence against a composite null hypothesis at any arbitrary stopping time. This paper studies methods for combining e-processes constructed using different information sets (filtrations) for the same null. Although e-processes constructed in the same filtration can be combined effortlessly (e.g., by averaging), e-processes constructed in different filtrations cannot, because their validity in a coarser filtration does not translate to validity in a finer filtration. This issue arises in exchangeability tests, independence tests, and tests for comparing forecasts with lags. We first establish that a class of functions called adjusters allows us to lift e-processes from a coarser filtration into any finer filtration. We then introduce a characterization theorem for adjusters, formalizing a sense in which using adjusters is necessary. There are two major implications. First, if we have a powerful e-process in a coarsened filtration, then we readily have a powerful e-process in the original filtration. Second, when we coarsen the filtration to construct an e-process, there is an asymptotically logarithmic cost of recovering anytime-validity in the original filtration.
- Sequentially valid tests for forecast calibration. The Annals of Applied Statistics, 17(3):1909–1935.
- Sequential nonparametric testing with the law of the iterated logarithm. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Second Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence, UAI’16, page 42–51.
- On certain probabilities equivalent to coin-tossing, d’après schachermayer. In Séminaire de Probabilités XXXIII, pages 240–256. Springer.
- Changes of filtrations and of probability measures. Zeitschrift für Wahrscheinlichkeitstheorie und verwandte Gebiete, 45(4):269–295.
- Brier, G. W. (1950). Verification of forecasts expressed in terms of probability. Monthly Weather Review, 78(1):1–3.
- Multiple testing under negative dependence. arXiv preprint arXiv:2212.09706.
- Comparing sequential forecasters. Operations Research.
- Cox, D. R. (1952). Sequential tests for composite hypotheses. Mathematical Proceedings of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 48(2):290–299.
- Confidence sequences for mean, variance, and median. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 58(1):66–68.
- Probability-free pricing of adjusted American lookbacks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1108.4113.
- Insuring against loss of evidence in game-theoretic probability. Statistics & Probability Letters, 81(1):157–162.
- de Finetti, B. (1931). Funzione caratteristica di un fenomeno aleatorio. In Atti della R. Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, Ser. 6, Memorie, Classe di Scienze Fisiche, Matematiche e Naturale, volume 4, pages 251–299.
- Decreasing sequences of σ𝜎\sigmaitalic_σ-fields and a measure change for Brownian motion. The Annals of Probability, 24(2):882–904.
- Durrett, R. (2019). Probability: Theory and examples, volume 49. Cambridge University Press.
- Plug-in martingales for testing exchangeability on-line. In Proceedings of International Conference on International Conference on Machine Learning, pages 923–930.
- Conformal martingales. Inventiones Mathematicae, 16(4):271–308.
- Safe testing. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology).
- A rank-based sequential test of independence. arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.13818.
- Valid sequential inference on probability forecast performance. Biometrika, 109(3):647–663.
- Time-uniform, nonparametric, nonasymptotic confidence sequences. The Annals of Statistics, 49(2):1055 – 1080.
- E-values as unnormalized weights in multiple testing. Biometrika.
- Always valid inference: Continuous monitoring of A/B tests. Operations Research, 70(3):1806–1821.
- Lai, T. L. (1976). On confidence sequences. The Annals of Statistics, 4(2):265–280.
- E-statistics, group invariance and anytime valid testing. arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.07610.
- Sequential kernelized independence testing. International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML).
- Sequential predictive two-sample and independence testing. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS).
- Game-theoretic statistics and safe anytime-valid inference. Statistical Science.
- Randomized and exchangeable improvements of Markov’s, Chebyshev’s and Chernoff’s inequalities. arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.02611.
- Admissible anytime-valid sequential inference must rely on nonnegative martingales. arXiv preprint arXiv:2009.03167.
- Testing exchangeability: Fork-convexity, supermartingales and e-processes. International Journal of Approximate Reasoning, 141:83–109.
- Derandomised knockoffs: leveraging e-values for false discovery rate control. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology).
- Robbins, H. (1970). Statistical methods related to the law of the iterated logarithm. The Annals of Mathematical Statistics, 41(5):1397–1409.
- Testing exchangeability by pairwise betting. International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS).
- Shafer, G. (2021). Testing by betting: A strategy for statistical and scientific communication. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A (Statistics in Society), 184(2):407–431.
- Test martingales, Bayes factors and p-values. Statistical Science, 26(1):84–101.
- Probability and finance: It’s only a game!, volume 491. Wiley.
- Game-theoretic foundations for probability and finance, volume 455. Wiley.
- Nonparametric two-sample testing by betting. IEEE Transactions on Information Theory.
- ALL-IN meta-analysis: Breathing life into living systematic reviews. F1000Research, 11.
- Tsirelson, B. (1998). Within and beyond the reach of Brownian innovation. In Proceedings of the International Congress of Mathematicians, volume 3, pages 311–320.
- Ville, J. (1939). Étude critique de la notion de collectif. Gauthier-Villars.
- Vovk, V. (2021a). Conformal testing in a binary model situation. In Conformal and Probabilistic Prediction and Applications, pages 131–150. PMLR.
- Vovk, V. (2021b). Testing randomness online. Statistical Science, 36(4):595–611.
- Algorithmic learning in a random world, volume 29. Springer.
- Testing exchangeability on-line. In Proceedings of the International Conference on Machine Learning, pages 768–775.
- Retrain or not retrain: Conformal test martingales for change-point detection. In Conformal and Probabilistic Prediction and Applications, pages 191–210. PMLR.
- Admissible ways of merging p-values under arbitrary dependence. The Annals of Statistics, 50(1):351–375.
- Combining p-values via averaging. Biometrika, 107(4):791–808.
- Merging sequential e-values via martingales. arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.06382.
- E-values: Calibration, combination and applications. The Annals of Statistics, 49(3):1736–1754.
- The extended Ville’s inequality for nonintegrable nonnegative supermartingales. arXiv preprint arXiv:2304.01163.
- False discovery rate control with e-values. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B (Statistical Methodology), 84(3):822–852.
- Universal inference. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(29):16880–16890.
- Estimating means of bounded random variables by betting. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology).
- A unified framework for bandit multiple testing. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 34:16833–16845.
- Post-selection inference for e-value based confidence intervals. arXiv preprint arXiv:2203.12572.