# BEST : A decision tree algorithm that handles missing values

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1804.10168 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.10168/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 26 Apr 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Interpretable Generalized Additive Models for Datasets with Missing Values](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.02646/) (2024)
- [Leveraging Predictive Equivalence in Decision Trees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.14143/) (2025)
- [Prediction Models That Learn to Avoid Missing Values](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.03393/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The main contribution of this paper is the development of a new decision tree algorithm. The proposed approach allows users to guide the algorithm through the data partitioning process. We believe this feature has many applications but in this paper we demonstrate how to utilize this algorithm to analyse data sets containing missing values. We tested our algorithm against simulated data sets with various missing data structures and a real data set. The results demonstrate that this new classification procedure efficiently handles missing values and produces results that are slightly more accurate and more interpretable than most common procedures without any imputations or pre-processing.