IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/eca/wpaper/2013-270860.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

From Mahalanobis to Bregman via Monge and Kantorovich towards a “General Generalised Distance”

Author

Listed:
  • Marc Hallin

Abstract

In his celebrated 1936 paper on “the generalized distance in statistics,” P.C. Mahalanobis pioneered the idea that, when defined over a space equipped with some probability measure P, a meaningful distance should be P-specific, with data-driven empirical counterpart. The so-called Mahalanobis distance and the corresponding Mahalanobis outlyingness achieve this objective in the case of a Gaussian P by mapping P to the spherical standard Gaussian, via a transformation based on second-order moments which appears to be an optimal transport in the Monge-Kantorovich sense. In a non-Gaussian context, though, one may feel that second-order moments are not informative enough, or inappropriate; moreover, they might not exist. We therefore propose a distance that fully takes the underlying P into account—not just its second-order features—by considering the potential that characterizes the optimal transport mapping P to the uniform over the unit ball, along with a symmetrized version of the corresponding Bregman divergence.

Suggested Citation

  • Marc Hallin, 2018. "From Mahalanobis to Bregman via Monge and Kantorovich towards a “General Generalised Distance”," Working Papers ECARES 2018-12, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
  • Handle: RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/270860
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/270860/3/2018-12-HALLIN-from.pdf
    File Function: Œuvre complète ou partie de l'œuvre
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alfred Galichon, 2016. "Optimal transport methods in economics," Post-Print hal-03256830, HAL.
    2. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/64itsev5509q8aa5mrbhi0g0b6 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Victor Chernozhukov & Alfred Galichon & Marc Hallin & Marc Henry, 2014. "Monge-Kantorovich Depth, Quantiles, Ranks, and Signs," Papers 1412.8434, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2015.
    4. Marc Hallin, 2017. "On Distribution and Quantile Functions, Ranks and Signs in R_d," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2017-34, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    5. Alfred Galichon, 2016. "Optimal Transport Methods in Economics," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 10870.
    6. Eustasio Del Barrio & Juan Cuesta Albertos & Marc Hallin & Carlos Matran, 2018. "Smooth Cyclically Monotone Interpolation and Empirical Center-Outward Distribution Functions," Working Papers ECARES 2018-15, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    7. Martin Burger, 2016. "Bregman Distances in Inverse Problems and Partial Differential Equations," Springer Optimization and Its Applications, in: Jean-Baptiste Hiriart-Urruty & Adam Korytowski & Helmut Maurer & Maciej Szymkat (ed.), Advances in Mathematical Modeling, Optimization and Optimal Control, pages 3-33, Springer.
    8. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/4c5431jp6o888pdrcs0fuirl40 is not listed on IDEAS
    9. Genest, Christian & Rivest, Louis-Paul, 2001. "On the multivariate probability integral transformation," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 391-399, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Marc Hallin, 2018. "From Mahalanobis to Bregman via Monge and Kantorovich," Sankhya B: The Indian Journal of Statistics, Springer;Indian Statistical Institute, vol. 80(1), pages 135-146, December.
    2. Hongjian Shi & Mathias Drton & Marc Hallin & Fang Han, 2023. "Semiparametrically Efficient Tests of Multivariate Independence Using Center-Outward Quadrant, Spearman, and Kendall Statistics," Working Papers ECARES 2023-03, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    3. Alfred Galichon & Bernard Salani'e, 2021. "Cupid's Invisible Hand: Social Surplus and Identification in Matching Models," Papers 2106.02371, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2023.
    4. Florian Gunsilius, 2018. "Point-identification in multivariate nonseparable triangular models," Papers 1806.09680, arXiv.org.
    5. Hongjian Shi & Marc Hallin & Mathias Drton & Fang Han, 2020. "Rate-Optimality of Consistent Distribution-Free Tests of Independence Based on Center-Outward Ranks and Signs," Working Papers ECARES 2020-23, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    6. Florian Gunsilius & Susanne Schennach, 2023. "Independent Nonlinear Component Analysis," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 118(542), pages 1305-1318, April.
    7. Manuel Arellano & Stéphane Bonhomme, 2023. "Recovering Latent Variables by Matching," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 118(541), pages 693-706, January.
    8. Dmitry Arkhangelsky, 2019. "Dealing with a Technological Bias: The Difference-in-Difference Approach," Working Papers wp2019_1903, CEMFI.
    9. Alfred Galichon, 2021. "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Optimal Transport in Economics," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03936221, HAL.
    10. del Barrio, Eustasio & González-Sanz, Alberto & Hallin, Marc, 2020. "A note on the regularity of optimal-transport-based center-outward distribution and quantile functions," Journal of Multivariate Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    11. Alfred Galichon, 2021. "The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Optimal Transport in Economics," Working Papers hal-03936221, HAL.
    12. Eustasio Del Barrio & Alberto Gonzalez-Sanz & Marc Hallin, 2019. "A Note on the Regularity of Center-Outward Distribution and Quantile Functions," Working Papers ECARES 2019-33, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    13. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum & Edouard Schaal, 2020. "Optimal Transport Networks in Spatial Equilibrium," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 88(4), pages 1411-1452, July.
    14. Carlier, Guillaume & Dupuy, Arnaud & Galichon, Alfred & Sun, Yifei, 2021. "SISTA: Learning Optimal Transport Costs under Sparsity Constraints," IZA Discussion Papers 14397, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Vuillermot, Pierre-A. & Zambrini, J.-C., 2020. "On Bernstein processes generated by hierarchies of linear parabolic systems in Rd," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 130(5), pages 2974-3004.
    16. Arthur Charpentier & Alfred Galichon & Lucas Vernet, 2019. "Optimal transport on large networks, a practitioner's guide," Papers 1907.02320, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2019.
    17. Odran Bonnet & Alfred Galichon & Yu-Wei Hsieh & Keith O’Hara & Matt Shum, 2022. "Yogurts Choose Consumers? Estimation of Random-Utility Models via Two-Sided Matching," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(6), pages 3085-3114.
    18. M. Hallin & D. La Vecchia & H. Liu, 2022. "Center-Outward R-Estimation for Semiparametric VARMA Models," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 117(538), pages 925-938, April.
    19. Francesca Molinari, 2020. "Microeconometrics with Partial Identi?cation," CeMMAP working papers CWP15/20, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    20. Adrien Bilal & Esteban Rossi‐Hansberg, 2021. "Location as an Asset," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(5), pages 2459-2495, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eca:wpaper:2013/270860. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/arulbbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.