# On properties of the Generalized Wasserstein distance

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1304.7014 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1304.7014/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 25 Apr 2013.

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## Abstract (arXiv)

The Wasserstein distances Wp (p≥ 1), defined in terms of solution to the Monge-Kantorovich problem, are known to be a useful tool to investigate transport equations. In particular, the Benamou-Brenier formula characterizes the square of the Wasserstein distance W2 as the infimum of the kinetic energy, or action functional, of all vector fields moving one measure to the other. Another important property of the Wasserstein distances is the Kantorovich-Rubinstein duality stating the equality between the distance W1 and the supremum of the integrals of Lipschitz continuous functions with Lipschitz constant bounded by one. An intrinsic limitation of Wasserstein distances is the fact that they are defined only between measures having the same mass. To overcome such limitation, we recently introduced the generalized Wasserstein distances Wpa,b, defined in terms of both the classical Wasserstein distance Wp and the total variation (or L1) distance. Here p plays the same role as for the classic Wasserstein distance, while a and b are weights for the transport and the total variation term. In this paper we prove two important properties of the generalized Wasserstein distances: 1) a generalized Benamou-Brenier formula providing the equality between W2a,b and the supremum of an action functional, which includes a transport term (kinetic energy) and a source term. 2) a duality `a la Kantorovich-Rubinstein establishing the equality between W11,1 and the flat metric.