Extrapolated Random Tree for Regression
Authors: Yuchao Cai, Yuheng Ma, Yiwei Dong, Hanfang Yang

In this paper, we propose a novel tree-based algorithm named Extrapolated Random Tree for Regression (ERTR) that adapts to arbitrary smoothness of the regression function while maintaining the interpretability of the tree. We first put forward the homothetic random tree for regression (HRTR) that converges to the target function as the homothetic ratio approaches zero. Then ERTR uses a linear regression model to extrapolate HRTR estimations with different ratios to the ratio zero. From the theoretical perspective, we for the first time establish the optimal convergence rates for ERTR when the target function resides in the general Hölder space $C^{k,\alpha}$ for $k\in \mathbb{N}$, whereas the lower bound of the convergence rate of the random tree for regression (RTR) is strictly slower than ERTR in the space $C^{k,\alpha}$ for $k\geq 1$. This shows that ERTR outperforms RTR for the target function with high-order smoothness due to the extrapolation. In the experiments, we compare ERTR with state-of-the-art tree algorithms on real datasets to show the superior performance of our model. Moreover, promising improvements are brought by using the extrapolated trees as base learners in the extension of ERTR to ensemble methods.