Online Inference in Distributional Temporal-Difference Learning

Abstract:We study online statistical inference for functionals of the return distribution under a fixed policy. The return distribution is estimated by nonparametric distributional temporal-difference learning from a single Markov trajectory. For the Polyak--Ruppert averaged estimator, we prove that its root-$T$ error converges weakly to a centered Gaussian random element in Cramér space. We also prove that, conditionally on the observed trajectory, the root-$T$ difference between the bootstrap and original averages converges weakly to the same Gaussian limit. These results justify bootstrap inference for smooth statistical functionals, including variance, CVaR, expected shortfall, and expectiles. For nonsmooth statistical functionals, we develop a local asymptotic theory for the estimated return CDF over $T^{-1/2}$-neighborhoods of finitely many thresholds, together with its bootstrap analogue. This theory allows us to conduct inference for nonsmooth statistical functionals characterized by CDF equations, including return quantiles.

Machine Learning (stat.ML); Machine Learning (cs.LG)

arXiv:2608.14408 [stat.ML]

(or arXiv:2608.14408v1 [stat.ML] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.14408 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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