A tree-based varying coefficient model

The paper introduces a tree-based varying coefficient model (VCM) where the varying coefficients are modelled using the cyclic gradient boosting machine (CGBM) from Delong et al. (2023). Modelling the coefficient functions using a CGBM allows for dimension-wise early stopping and feature importance scores. The dimension-wise early stopping not only reduces the risk of dimension-specific overfitting, but also reveals differences in model complexity across dimensions. The use of feature importance scores allows for simple feature selection and easy model interpretation. The model is evaluated on the same simulated and real data examples as those used in Richman and W\"uthrich (2023), and the results show that it produces results in terms of out of sample loss that are comparable to those of their neural network-based VCM called LocalGLMnet.

Trinary Decision Trees for missing value handling

This paper introduces the Trinary decision tree, an algorithm designed to improve the handling of missing data in decision tree regressors and classifiers. Unlike other approaches, the Trinary decision tree does not assume that missing values contain any information about the response. Both theoretical calculations on estimator bias and numerical illustrations using real data sets are presented to compare its performance with established algorithms in different missing data scenarios (Missing Completely at Random (MCAR), and Informative Missingness (IM)). Notably, the Trinary tree outperforms its peers in MCAR settings, especially when data is only missing out-of-sample, while lacking behind in IM settings. A hybrid model, the TrinaryMIA tree, which combines the Trinary tree and the Missing In Attributes (MIA) approach, shows robust performance in all types of missingness. Despite the potential drawback of slower training speed, the Trinary tree offers a promising and more accurate method of handling missing data in decision tree algorithms.