Representable Markov Categories and Comparison of Statistical Experiments in Categorical Probability

Autor: Fritz, Tobias, Gonda, Tomáš, Perrone, Paolo, Rischel, Eigil Fjeldgren
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: Theoretical Computer Science 961, 113896 (2023)
Druh dokumentu: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1016/j.tcs.2023.113896
Popis: Markov categories are a recent categorical approach to the mathematical foundations of probability and statistics. Here, this approach is advanced by stating and proving equivalent conditions for second-order stochastic dominance, a widely used way of comparing probability distributions by their spread. Furthermore, we lay foundation for the theory of comparing statistical experiments within Markov categories by stating and proving the classical Blackwell-Sherman-Stein Theorem. Our version not only offers new insight into the proof, but its abstract nature also makes the result more general, automatically specializing to the standard Blackwell-Sherman-Stein Theorem in measure-theoretic probability as well as a Bayesian version that involves prior-dependent garbling. Along the way, we define and characterize representable Markov categories, within which one can talk about Markov kernels to or from spaces of distributions. We do so by exploring the relation between Markov categories and Kleisli categories of probability monads.
Comment: 63 pages, color used in text and diagrams. v3: To be published in Theoretical Computer Science. Section 6 on strongly representable Markov categories removed to streamline the narrative, plus other minor changes
Databáze: arXiv