Simulating Classification Models for Ex-Ante Evaluation of Predict-Then-Optimize Methods

The paper extends ex‑ante evaluation of Predict‑Then‑Optimize methods from binary to multiclass classification by simulating predictions at specified performance levels and mapping prediction errors to decision regret. It introduces a first‑order approximation that estimates regret from individual misclassifications, reducing computational effort. Experiments show the simulation accurately reproduces target performance and that the approximation is close for some problems, though it falters when simultaneous misclassifications interact significantly.

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