# Non-asymptotic confidence bounds for the optimal value of a stochastic program

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1601.07592 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1601.07592/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 27 Jan 2016.

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Constrained Learning with Non-Convex Losses](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.05134/) (2021)
- [Metric Entropy-Free Sample Complexity Bounds for Sample Average Approximation in Convex Stochastic Programming](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.00664/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We discuss a general approach to building non-asymptotic confidence bounds for stochastic optimization problems. Our principal contribution is the observation that a Sample Average Approximation of a problem supplies upper and lower bounds for the optimal value of the problem which are essentially better than the quality of the corresponding optimal solutions. At the same time, such bounds are more reliable than "standard" confidence bounds obtained through the asymptotic approach. We also discuss bounding the optimal value of MinMax Stochastic Optimization and stochastically constrained problems. We conclude with a simulation study illustrating the numerical behavior of the proposed bounds.