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Models under which random forests perform badly; consequences for applications

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  • José A. Ferreira

    (National Institute for Public Health and the Environment (RIVM))

Abstract

We give examples of data-generating models under which Breiman’s random forest may be extremely slow to converge to the optimal predictor or even fail to be consistent. The evidence provided for these properties is based on mostly intuitive arguments, similar to those used earlier with simpler examples, and on numerical experiments. Although one can always choose models under which random forests perform very badly, we show that simple methods based on statistics of ‘variable use’ and ‘variable importance’ can often be used to construct a much better predictor based on a ‘many-armed’ random forest obtained by forcing initial splits on variables which the default version of the algorithm tends to ignore.

Suggested Citation

  • José A. Ferreira, 2022. "Models under which random forests perform badly; consequences for applications," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 37(4), pages 1839-1854, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:compst:v:37:y:2022:i:4:d:10.1007_s00180-021-01182-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s00180-021-01182-4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Gérard Biau & Erwan Scornet, 2016. "A random forest guided tour," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 25(2), pages 197-227, June.
    2. Ruoqing Zhu & Donglin Zeng & Michael R. Kosorok, 2015. "Reinforcement Learning Trees," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 110(512), pages 1770-1784, December.
    3. Gérard Biau & Erwan Scornet, 2016. "Rejoinder on: A random forest guided tour," TEST: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 25(2), pages 264-268, June.
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