Evaluation of Binary Classifiers for Asymptotically Dependent and Independent Extremes

Juliette Legrand, Philippe Naveau and Marco Oesting

Journal of the American Statistical Association, 2025, vol. 120, issue 551, 1558-1568

Abstract: Machine learning classification methods usually assume that all possible classes are sufficiently present within the training set. Due to their inherent rarities, extreme events are always under-represented and classifiers tailored for predicting extremes need to be carefully designed to handle this under-representation. In this article, we address the question of how to assess and compare classifiers with respect to their capacity to capture extreme occurrences. This is also related to the topic of scoring rules used in forecasting literature. In this context, we propose and study a risk function adapted to extremal classifiers. The inferential properties of our empirical risk estimator are derived under the framework of multivariate regular variation and hidden regular variation. A simulation study compares different classifiers and indicates their performance with respect to our risk function. To conclude, we apply our framework to the analysis of extreme river discharges in the Danube river basin. The application compares different predictive algorithms and test their capacity at forecasting river discharges from other river stations. Supplementary materials for this article are available online, including a standardized description of the materials available for reproducing the work.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/01621459.2025.2529024

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