This paper analyzes customer product-choice behavior based on the recency and frequency of each customer's page views on e-commerce sites. Recently, we devised an optimization model for estimating product-choice probabilities that satisfy monotonicity, convexity, and concavity constraints with respect to recency and frequency. This shape-restricted model delivered high predictive performance even when there were few training samples. However, typical e-commerce sites deal in many different varieties of products, so the predictive performance of the model can be further improved by integration of such product heterogeneity. For this purpose, we develop a novel latent-class shape-restricted model for estimating product-choice probabilities for each latent class of products. We also give a tailored expectation-maximization algorithm for parameter estimation. Computational results demonstrate that higher predictive performance is achieved with our latent-class model than with the previous shape-restricted model and common latent-class logistic regression.
Shape-restricted regression, which has its origin in earlier work @cite_5 @cite_24 @cite_33 , fits a nonparametric function to given data points under shape restrictions such as monotonicity, convexity, and concavity. Some popular examples include the estimation of utility production cost profit functions in economics @cite_34 @cite_41 and option pricing functions in finance @cite_6 . Various algorithms have been developed for shape-restricted regression @cite_19 @cite_25 @cite_37 @cite_39 @cite_0 @cite_7 , a special case of which is isotonic regression. This has many applications in statistics, operations research, and image processing @cite_13 . @cite_23 recently used the maximum likelihood method to estimate product-choice probabilities subject to the monotonicity, convexity, and concavity constraints with respect to recency and frequency. Their shape-restricted model was a new effective application of shape-restricted regression to the analysis of clickstream data.
@cite_37 @cite_33 @cite_7 @cite_41 @cite_6 @cite_39 @cite_24 @cite_19 @cite_0 @cite_23 @cite_5 @cite_34 @cite_13 @cite_25
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The objective of this article is to develop a computationally efficient estimator of the regression function subject to various shape constraints. In particular, nonparametric estimators of monotone and or convex (concave) regression functions are obtained by using a nested sequence of Bernstein polynomials. One of the key distinguishing features of the proposed estimator is that a given shape constraint (e.g., monotonicity and or convexity) is maintained for any finite sample size and satisfied over the entire support of the predictor space. Moreover, it is shown that the Bernstein polynomial based regression estimator can be obtained as a solution of a constrained least squares method and hence the estimator can be computed efficiently using a quadratic programming algorithm. Finally, the asymptotic properties (e.g., strong uniform consistency) of the estimator are established under very mild conditions, and finite sample properties are explored using several simulation studies and real data analysis. The predictive performances are compared with some of the existing methods. Frequently, economic theory places shape restrictions on functional relationships between economic variables. This paper develops a method to constrain the values of the first and second derivatives of nonparametric locally polynomial estimators. We apply this technique to estimate the state price density (SPD), or risk-neutral density, implicit in the market prices of options. The option pricing function must be monotonic and convex. Simulations demonstrate that nonparametric estimates can be quite feasible in the small samples relevant for day-to-day option pricing, once appropriate theory-motivated shape restrictions are imposed. Using S&P500 option prices, we show that unconstrained nonparametric estimators violate the constraints during more than half the trading days in 1999, unlike the constrained estimator we propose. We propose a new method for pointwise estimation of monotone, uni- modal and U-shaped failure rates, under a right-censoring mechanism, using non- parametric likelihood ratios. The asymptotic distribution of the likelihood ratio is pivotal, though non-standard, and can therefore be used to construct asymptotic confidence intervals for the failure rate at a point of interest, via inversion. Major advantages of the new method lie in the facts that it completely avoids estima- tion of nuisance parameters, or the choice of a bandwidth tuning parameter, and is extremely easy to implement. The new method is shown to perform competi- tively in simulations, and is illustrated on a data set involving time to diagnosis of schizophrenia in the Jerusalem Perinatal Cohort Schizophrenia Study. Given a weighted graph with N vertices, consider a real-valued regression problem in a semisupervised setting, where one observes n labeled vertices, and the task is to label the remaining ones. We present a theoretical study of p-based Laplacian regularization under a d-dimensional geometric random graph model. We provide a variational characterization of the performance of this regularized learner as N grows to infinity while n stays constant; the associated optimality conditions lead to a partial differential equation that must be satisfied by the associated function estimate f . From this formulation we derive several predictions on the limiting behavior the function f , including (a) a phase transition in its smoothness at the threshold p = d + 1; and (b) a tradeoff between smoothness and sensitivity to the underlying unlabeled data distribution P . Thus, over the range p ≤ d, the function estimate f is degenerate and “spiky,” whereas for p ≥ d + 1, the function estimate f is smooth. We show that the effect of the underlying density vanishes monotonically with p, such that in the limit p = ∞, corresponding to the so-called Absolutely Minimal Lipschitz Extension, the estimate f is independent of the distribution P . Under the assumption of semi-supervised smoothness, ignoring P can lead to poor statistical performance; in particular, we construct a specific example for d = 1 to demonstrate that p = 2 has lower risk than p =∞ due to the former penalty adapting to P and the latter ignoring it. We also provide simulations that verify the accuracy of our predictions for finite sample sizes. Together, these properties show that p = d + 1 is an optimal choice, yielding a function estimate f that is both smooth and non-degenerate, while remaining maximally sensitive to P .