Wasserstein Distributionally Robust Quantile Regression

Abstract

We study distributionally robust quantile regression using type-$p$ Wasserstein ambiguity sets. We derive a closed-form expression for the worst-case quantile regression loss under general $p$-Wasserstein uncertainty. We further give a uniqueness result showing that for $p>1$, the check loss yields the only class of convex loss functions for which such an additive Wasserstein regularization holds. Our analysis also uncovers qualitative differences between the regimes $p=1$ and $p>1$. When $p>1$, the slope coefficients coincide with those of the regularized formulation, while the intercept undergoes a radius-dependent adjustment; the value $p$ affects only this intercept correction, whereas the choice of transport norm influences both. Finally, we establish finite-sample out-of-sample risk guarantees of order $O(N^{-1/2})$ under mild moment conditions. Numerical experiments illustrate the theoretical findings and the practical implications of the proposed formulation.