From Blackwell Dominance in Large Samples to Rényi Divergences and Back Again.

We study repeated independent Blackwell experiments; standard examples include drawing multiple samples from a population, or performing a measurement in different locations. In the baseline setting of a binary state of nature, we compare experiments in terms of their informativeness in large sample...

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Published in:Econometrica Vol. 89; no. 1; pp. 475 - 507
Main Authors: Mu, Xiaosheng, Pomatto, Luciano, Strack, Philipp, Tamuz, Omer
Format: Article
Published: Wiley-Blackwell Jan2021
Subjects:
Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
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      dt: Jan2021
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        148146686
        10.3982/ECTA17548
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        atl: From Blackwell Dominance in Large Samples to Rényi Divergences and Back Again.
      aug:
        au:
          Mu, Xiaosheng
          Pomatto, Luciano
          Strack, Philipp
          Tamuz, Omer
        affil:
          Department of Economics, Princeton University
          Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Caltech
          Department of Economics, Yale University
      su:
        Social dominance
        Electronic data processing
        Stochastic dominance
        Integral inequalities
      sug:
        subj:
          Social dominance
          Electronic data processing
          Data Processing, Hosting, and Related Services
          Stochastic dominance
          Integral inequalities
      keyword:
        Comparison of experiments
        divergences
        stochastic dominance
        Comparison of experiments
        divergences
        stochastic dominance
      ab: We study repeated independent Blackwell experiments; standard examples include drawing multiple samples from a population, or performing a measurement in different locations. In the baseline setting of a binary state of nature, we compare experiments in terms of their informativeness in large samples. Addressing a question due to Blackwell (1951), we show that generically an experiment is more informative than another in large samples if and only if it has higher Rényi divergences. We apply our analysis to the problem of measuring the degree of dissimilarity between distributions by means of divergences. A useful property of Rényi divergences is their additivity with respect to product distributions. Our characterization of Blackwell dominance in large samples implies that every additive divergence that satisfies the data processing inequality is an integral of Rényi divergences.
      pubtype: Academic Journal
      doctype: Article
      src: R
    language: English
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