Choosing Weights and Validating ML

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Maciej Nasinski

2026-05-17

This vignette is a decision guide for choosing and checking weights in cat2cat().

If you only need the basic two-period workflow, go back to Get Started. If you need multi-period, panel, aggregated, or regression workflows, continue to Advanced Workflows.

Step 1: Understand the competing weight assumptions

cat2cat offers several ways to assign probability weights to replicated observations. Each method encodes a different distributional assumption about how ambiguous observations split across candidate categories. When a downstream estimand depends on the mapped category, this is the identifying assumption for that estimand - so always check sensitivity.

Naive weights (wei_naive_c2c) are always computed. Each replicated observation gets uniform probability $1/k$ where $k$ is the number of candidate categories.

Assumption: All candidates equally likely (maximum entropy / uninformative prior)
Requires: Only the mapping table - no data from either period
Use when: No information favoring any candidate, or as a robustness lower bound

Frequency-based weights (wei_freq_c2c) are the default. They use category counts from the base period.

Assumption: Ambiguous observations distribute like the base period population
Requires: Observed counts in base period (falls back to naive if all zero)
Use when: Base period is large and representative; ambiguous cases resemble the general population

ML weights (wei_knn_c2c, wei_lda_c2c, wei_rf_c2c, wei_nb_c2c) use individual features to predict category membership.

Assumption: Features (age, education, etc.) predict true category: $P(j \mid X, g)$
Requires: Training data with both category labels and predictive features
Use when: Features are informative - verify with cat2cat_ml_run()

Available ML methods:

knn: k-Nearest Neighbours. A non-parametric method that handles non-linear boundaries. Sensitive to the choice of k.
lda: Linear Discriminant Analysis. Fast, interpretable. Assumes multivariate normality and equal covariance.
rf: Random Forest. Handles interactions well. Slower, needs ntree tuning.
nb: Naive Bayes via e1071. Fast, useful after numeric/logical/factor preprocessing. Assumes conditional independence of features.

ML features must be numeric, logical, or factor columns. Factor columns are one-hot encoded automatically using levels observed in the training data and the target period. Character columns are not encoded automatically; convert them to factors first if they represent categories.

You can run multiple methods at once and compare or combine them:

occup_2_mix <- cat2cat(
  data = list(
    old = occup_2008, new = occup_2010,
    cat_var = "code", time_var = "year"
  ),
  mappings = list(trans = trans, direction = "backward"),
  ml = list(
    data = occup_2010,
    cat_var = "code",
    method = c("knn", "rf", "lda", "nb"),
    features = c("age", "sex", "edu", "exp", "parttime", "salary"),
    args = list(k = 10, ntree = 50),
    on_fail = "na"
  )
)

Correlations between weight methods:

occup_2_mix$old %>%
  select(wei_knn_c2c, wei_rf_c2c, wei_lda_c2c, wei_nb_c2c, wei_freq_c2c, wei_naive_c2c) %>%
    cor(use = "pairwise.complete.obs")
#>               wei_knn_c2c wei_rf_c2c wei_lda_c2c wei_nb_c2c wei_freq_c2c
#> wei_knn_c2c     1.0000000  0.8655665   0.8327864  0.6196138    0.8989887
#> wei_rf_c2c      0.8655665  1.0000000   0.8825387  0.6519528    0.8755385
#> wei_lda_c2c     0.8327864  0.8825387   1.0000000  0.6592195    0.8667809
#> wei_nb_c2c      0.6196138  0.6519528   0.6592195  1.0000000    0.6107475
#> wei_freq_c2c    0.8989887  0.8755385   0.8667809  0.6107475    1.0000000
#> wei_naive_c2c   0.4908619  0.4754159   0.4811839  0.5594270    0.5449029
#>               wei_naive_c2c
#> wei_knn_c2c       0.4908619
#> wei_rf_c2c        0.4754159
#> wei_lda_c2c       0.4811839
#> wei_nb_c2c        0.5594270
#> wei_freq_c2c      0.5449029
#> wei_naive_c2c     1.0000000

If ML fails on some rows: `on_fail` and `fail_warn`

Sometimes ML probabilities cannot be produced for a subset of replicated rows (for example incomplete target features or method-specific prediction failures). cat2cat() exposes explicit policy controls in ml:

on_fail = "freq" (default): failed ML rows are filled with wei_freq_c2c.
on_fail = "naive": failed ML rows are filled with wei_naive_c2c.
on_fail = "na": failed ML rows are kept as NA.
on_fail = "error": stop immediately when failed rows are detected.
fail_warn = TRUE (default): warn with affected rows/observations per method.
fail_warn = FALSE: suppress these warnings.

Important: this failure accounting is specific to cat2cat() and the constructed weight columns (wei_*_c2c). It is different from cat2cat_ml_run() “SKIPPED GROUPS”, which reports mapping groups that were not evaluated in holdout diagnostics (single category, too few observations, or method fit/predict error for that group).

ml_setup <- list(
  data = bind_rows(occup_2010, occup_2012),
  cat_var = "code",
  method = c("knn", "rf", "lda"),
  features = c("age", "sex", "edu", "exp", "parttime", "salary"),
  args = list(k = 10, ntree = 50),
  on_fail = "freq",   # default policy
  fail_warn = TRUE     # default reporting
)

# strict mode for QA pipelines
ml_strict <- ml_setup
ml_strict$on_fail <- "error"

# diagnostic mode to inspect failures directly
ml_diag <- ml_setup
ml_diag$on_fail <- "na"
ml_diag$fail_warn <- FALSE

Ensemble weights with cross_c2c() and pruning with prune_c2c():

occup_old_mix <- occup_2_mix$old %>%
  cross_c2c(.) %>%
  prune_c2c(., column = "wei_cross_c2c", method = "nonzero")

Step 2: Check whether conclusions are sensitive to the weight choice

Different weight methods affect regression coefficients when you filter to a specific occupation group and combine both periods. This is the proper sensitivity analysis: subjects from the base period (new, no replication) plus subjects from the target period (old, weighted by probability of belonging to this group).

Compare weight methods on the same mapped data

Run backward mapping with all ML methods:

result_all <- cat2cat(
  data = list(old = occup_2008, new = occup_2010,
              cat_var = "code", time_var = "year"),
  mappings = list(trans = trans, direction = "backward"),
  ml = list(
    data = occup_2010, cat_var = "code",
    method = c("knn", "rf", "lda", "nb"),
    features = c("age", "sex", "edu", "exp", "parttime", "salary"),
    args = list(k = 10, ntree = 50)
  )
)

Weighted counts per group - compare how weight methods redistribute observations:

weight_cols <- c("wei_naive_c2c", "wei_freq_c2c", "wei_knn_c2c", "wei_rf_c2c", "wei_lda_c2c", "wei_nb_c2c")

# Pick groups with high replication
top_groups <- result_all$old %>%
  filter(rep_c2c > 1) %>%
  count(g_new_c2c, sort = TRUE) %>%
  head(6) %>%
  pull(g_new_c2c)

# Weighted counts from OLD period (replicated)
old_counts <- lapply(weight_cols, function(wcol) {
  result_all$old %>%
    filter(g_new_c2c %in% top_groups) %>%
    group_by(g_new_c2c) %>%
    summarise(n = sum(.data[[wcol]]), .groups = "drop")
}) %>%
  setNames(gsub("wei_|_c2c", "", weight_cols)) %>%
  bind_rows(.id = "method") %>%
  tidyr::pivot_wider(names_from = method, values_from = n)

# Counts from NEW period (no replication, exact)
new_counts <- result_all$new %>%
  filter(code %in% top_groups) %>%
  count(code, name = "new_period") %>%
  rename(g_new_c2c = code)

# Combine for comparison
left_join(old_counts, new_counts, by = "g_new_c2c")
#> # A tibble: 6 × 8
#>   g_new_c2c naive  freq   knn    rf   lda    nb new_period
#>   <chr>     <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl> <dbl>      <int>
#> 1 232002     23.1 21.9   29.2 21.4  29.7  21.9          30
#> 2 232003     23.1 19.7   23.9 19.3  25.1  19.7          27
#> 3 232004     23.1  5.10   5    4.66  8.05  5.10          7
#> 4 232005     23.1  3.65   5.1  4.4   7.49  3.65          5
#> 5 232006     23.1 16.8   15.2 14.0  18.5  16.8          23
#> 6 232007     23.1  2.92   2.5  1.9   3.74  2.92          4

The new_period column shows the actual counts in 2010. The other columns show how the 2008 observations are redistributed under each weight method. naive assigns uniform probability (1/n candidates), freq uses base period frequencies, and ML methods (knn, rf, lda, nb) use predicted probabilities.

Pick a specific group for regression analysis:

# New-period counts per category (no replication, so plain tally)
new_counts_all <- result_all$new %>%
  count(code, name = "n_new") %>%
  rename(g_new_c2c = code)

# Old-period weighted counts, joined to new-period counts
group_sizes <- result_all$old %>%
  group_by(g_new_c2c) %>%
  summarise(n_old = sum(wei_freq_c2c), .groups = "drop") %>%
  left_join(new_counts_all, by = "g_new_c2c") %>%
  filter(n_old >= 10, n_new >= 10) %>%
  arrange(desc(n_old))

# Pick a group for regression analysis
target_group <- group_sizes$g_new_c2c[1]
cat("Analysing occupation group:", target_group, "\n")
#> Analysing occupation group: 222101

Regression within a single occupation group - combine both periods and compare coefficients:

# Subset old period to target group (with weights)
old_subset <- result_all$old %>%
  filter(g_new_c2c == target_group)

# Subset new period to target group (no replication, weight = 1)
new_subset <- result_all$new %>%
  filter(code == target_group) %>%
  mutate(
    wei_naive_c2c = 1, wei_freq_c2c = 1, wei_knn_c2c = 1,
    wei_rf_c2c = 1, wei_lda_c2c = 1, wei_nb_c2c = 1
  )

# Combine both periods
d <- bind_rows(old_subset, new_subset)

# Compare all regression coefficients across weight methods
f <- I(log(salary)) ~ age + sex + factor(edu) + exp + parttime

coefs <- sapply(weight_cols, function(wcol) {
  d$w <- d$multiplier * d[[wcol]]
  coef(lm(f, data = d, weights = w))
})
colnames(coefs) <- gsub("wei_|_c2c", "", weight_cols)
round(coefs, 4)
#>                naive    freq     knn      rf     lda      nb
#> (Intercept)   9.3225  9.2194  9.2118  9.2085  9.2229  9.2194
#> age          -0.0090 -0.0083 -0.0081 -0.0079 -0.0085 -0.0083
#> sexTRUE      -0.0042 -0.1153 -0.1421 -0.1323 -0.1253 -0.1153
#> factor(edu)2 -0.1317 -0.1131 -0.1157 -0.1119 -0.1108 -0.1131
#> factor(edu)3 -0.1036 -0.1065 -0.1090 -0.1055 -0.1033 -0.1065
#> factor(edu)4 -0.1333 -0.1450 -0.1472 -0.1451 -0.1428 -0.1450
#> factor(edu)5 -0.1884 -0.1370 -0.1326 -0.1396 -0.1303 -0.1370
#> exp           0.0138  0.0131  0.0128  0.0128  0.0132  0.0131
#> parttime      1.3797  1.4348  1.4411  1.4311  1.4343  1.4348

All coefficients can vary because weight methods change which old-period subjects contribute to this occupation group.

Compare pruning strategies only after comparing full weights

Note: Pruning discards probability information and should be used only after analysis with full weights. Prefer prune_c2c(method = "nonzero") to remove impossible candidates while preserving the probability distribution. More aggressive pruning (highest1) is appropriate only for descriptive tables or when you need exactly one category per observation.

# Compare regression coefficients under different pruning strategies
prune_methods <- c("nonzero", "highest", "highest1")

prune_coefs <- sapply(prune_methods, function(pm) {
  old_pruned <- result_all$old %>%
    prune_c2c(method = pm) %>%
    filter(g_new_c2c == target_group)
  
  d <- bind_rows(old_pruned, new_subset)
  d$w <- d$multiplier * d$wei_freq_c2c
  coef(lm(f, data = d, weights = w))
})
round(prune_coefs, 4)
#>              nonzero highest highest1
#> (Intercept)   9.2194  9.2143   9.2143
#> age          -0.0083 -0.0083  -0.0083
#> sexTRUE      -0.1153 -0.1200  -0.1200
#> factor(edu)2 -0.1131 -0.1122  -0.1122
#> factor(edu)3 -0.1065 -0.1068  -0.1068
#> factor(edu)4 -0.1450 -0.1454  -0.1454
#> factor(edu)5 -0.1370 -0.1337  -0.1337
#> exp           0.0131  0.0131   0.0131
#> parttime      1.4348  1.4384   1.4384

Compare ensemble compositions when no single method dominates

cross_c2c() creates a weighted average of multiple weight columns. Vary the mix:

configs <- list(
  equal      = c(1, 1) / 2,
  freq_heavy = c(3, 1) / 4,
  ml_heavy   = c(1, 3) / 4
)

ens_coefs <- sapply(names(configs), function(nm) {
  old_ens <- result_all$old %>%
    cross_c2c(c("wei_freq_c2c", "wei_knn_c2c"), configs[[nm]]) %>%
    filter(g_new_c2c == target_group)
  
  new_ens <- new_subset %>% mutate(wei_cross_c2c = 1)
  d <- bind_rows(old_ens, new_ens)
  d$w <- d$multiplier * d$wei_cross_c2c
  coef(lm(f, data = d, weights = w))
})
round(ens_coefs, 4)
#>                equal freq_heavy ml_heavy
#> (Intercept)   9.2155     9.2175   9.2136
#> age          -0.0082    -0.0083  -0.0082
#> sexTRUE      -0.1287    -0.1220  -0.1354
#> factor(edu)2 -0.1144    -0.1138  -0.1151
#> factor(edu)3 -0.1078    -0.1072  -0.1084
#> factor(edu)4 -0.1462    -0.1456  -0.1467
#> factor(edu)5 -0.1348    -0.1359  -0.1337
#> exp           0.0130     0.0131   0.0129
#> parttime      1.4381     1.4365   1.4396

When regression coefficients are stable across weight methods, pruning strategies, and ensemble compositions, report with confidence. When they diverge, the mapping introduces uncertainty - report the range or investigate the source.

Step 3: Validate whether ML actually improves on simpler baselines

The ml argument in cat2cat() adds ML-based probability weights, but ML is not guaranteed to improve over simpler baselines. cat2cat_ml_run() provides per-group holdout (single train/test split) diagnostics to answer this question before committing to a method.

What `cat2cat_ml_run()` is doing

For each mapping group (set of candidate categories linked by the transition table) cat2cat_ml_run():

Collects all observations from ml$data whose category belongs to the group.
Randomly splits them into training (1 - test_prop) and test (test_prop) sets.
Computes two baselines on the test set:
- naive - accuracy of a random guess ($1 / k$ where $k$ is the number of candidate categories).
- freq - accuracy of always predicting the most frequent training-set category.
Trains each specified ML method on the training set and records test-set model performance.

Groups with fewer than 5 observations or only one candidate category are skipped. Also note that cat2cat_ml_run() does not use on_fail; it is a diagnostic tool and reports skipped groups instead of applying row-level fallback weights.

Minimal validation workflow

cv_knn <- cat2cat_ml_run(
  mappings = list(trans = trans, direction = "backward"),
  ml = list(
    data = bind_rows(occup_2010, occup_2012),
    cat_var = "code",
    method = "knn",
    features = c("age", "sex", "edu", "exp", "parttime", "salary"),
    args = list(k = 10)
  )
)
print(cv_knn)
#> === cat2cat ML Cross-Validation Results ===
#> 
#> ACCURACY (higher is better):
#>   naive (1/k): 0.1805
#>   freq (most common): 0.5324
#>   knn: accuracy = 0.5228
#> 
#> BRIER SCORE (lower is better, range 0-1):
#>   naive: 0.4097
#>   freq: 0.3026
#>   knn: brier = 0.3249
#> 
#> MEAN P(TRUE CLASS) (higher is better):
#>   naive: 0.1805
#>   freq: 0.4191
#>   knn: mean P(true) = 0.4492
#> 
#> ACCURACY: ML vs BASELINES (percent of groups where ML wins):
#>   knn > naive: 89.4%
#>   knn > freq: 24.9%
#> 
#> SKIPPED GROUPS (single category or <5 observations):
#>   knn: 32.6%

The print() summary reports:

ACCURACY - average held-out classification accuracy across non-skipped groups. naive (1/k) is the random-guess baseline, freq is the majority-class baseline, and each ML line reports top-class accuracy for that method.
BRIER SCORE - average full-vector probability error across non-skipped groups. Lower is better. This matters because cat2cat ultimately uses probability weights, not just hard classifications.
MEAN P(TRUE CLASS) - average probability assigned to the true category. Higher is better. This is often the most directly relevant metric for cat2cat, because it measures the quality of the probability weights themselves.
ACCURACY: ML vs BASELINES - the share of groups in which the ML method beats naive or beats freq on accuracy. This is a win-rate summary, not an average accuracy gap.
SKIPPED GROUPS - the percentage of mapping groups for which that ML method has no reported result because the group had only one candidate category, fewer than 5 observations, or the model could not be fit for that group.

So for output like:

knn > naive: 87.7%
knn > freq: 18.0%
knn: accuracy = 0.5108 vs freq (most common): 0.5366

the right reading is: kNN clearly beats the naive baseline, but it does not beat the frequency baseline on top-class accuracy overall. In that case, wei_freq_c2c remains the default choice if your only goal is classification accuracy.

At the same time, if kNN has a slightly lower Brier score and a higher mean P(true class) than freq, then it may still be producing better-calibrated probability weights even though its top prediction is less often correct. That distinction matters in cat2cat, because the mapped weights are probabilities distributed across candidate categories rather than single-class assignments.

Compare multiple ML methods in one run

cv_all <- cat2cat_ml_run(
  mappings = list(trans = trans, direction = "backward"),
  ml = list(
    data = bind_rows(occup_2010, occup_2012),
    cat_var = "code",
    method = c("knn", "lda", "rf", "nb"),
    features = c("age", "sex", "edu", "exp", "parttime", "salary"),
    args = list(k = 10, ntree = 50)
  )
)
print(cv_all)
#> === cat2cat ML Cross-Validation Results ===
#> 
#> ACCURACY (higher is better):
#>   naive (1/k): 0.1805
#>   freq (most common): 0.5402
#>   knn: accuracy = 0.5392
#>   lda: accuracy = 0.5453
#>   rf: accuracy = 0.5428
#>   nb: accuracy = 0.3977
#> 
#> BRIER SCORE (lower is better, range 0-1):
#>   naive: 0.4097
#>   freq: 0.2923
#>   knn: brier = 0.3105
#>   lda: brier = 0.3250
#>   rf: brier = 0.3030
#>   nb: brier = 0.4542
#> 
#> MEAN P(TRUE CLASS) (higher is better):
#>   naive: 0.1805
#>   freq: 0.4268
#>   knn: mean P(true) = 0.4578
#>   lda: mean P(true) = 0.4784
#>   rf: mean P(true) = 0.4709
#>   nb: mean P(true) = 0.4149
#> 
#> ACCURACY: ML vs BASELINES (percent of groups where ML wins):
#>   knn > naive: 90.8%
#>   lda > naive: 91.5%
#>   rf > naive: 90.8%
#>   nb > naive: 78.8%
#>   knn > freq: 21.8%
#>   lda > freq: 34.1%
#>   rf > freq: 29.2%
#>   nb > freq: 17.8%
#> 
#> SKIPPED GROUPS (single category or <5 observations):
#>   knn: 33.6%
#>   lda: 46.3%
#>   rf: 33.8%
#>   nb: 34.1%

Interpretation tip for mixed outputs:

It is possible for a method to have 0 failed rows in cat2cat() but a non-zero skipped-group rate in cat2cat_ml_run().
This is not a contradiction: the first is row-level weight construction, the second is group-level holdout evaluation coverage.

Inspect per-group diagnostics when methods disagree

The returned object is a named list. Each element corresponds to one mapping group:

# Pick a group with multiple candidates
group_names <- names(cv_all)
example_group <- group_names[
  which(vapply(cv_all, function(g) !is.na(g$freq) && g$naive < 1, logical(1)))[1]
]
cv_all[[example_group]]
#> $naive
#> [1] 0.3333333
#> 
#> $acc
#> knn lda  rf  nb 
#>   1  NA   1   1 
#> 
#> $freq
#> [1] 1
#> 
#> $brier
#>    knn    lda     rf     nb 
#> 0.0000     NA 0.0025     NA 
#> 
#> $mean_prob
#>   knn   lda    rf    nb 
#> 1.000    NA 0.975    NA 
#> 
#> $naive_brier
#> [1] 0.3333333
#> 
#> $naive_mean_prob
#> [1] 0.3333333
#> 
#> $freq_brier
#> [1] 0.00390625
#> 
#> $freq_mean_prob
#> [1] 0.9375

Each group entry contains the group-level diagnostics behind the printed summary:

$naive - $1/k$ random-guess accuracy for that group.
$freq - majority-class accuracy for that group.
$acc - named numeric vector with ML accuracy by method.
$naive_brier and $freq_brier - baseline Brier scores.
$brier - named numeric vector with ML Brier scores by method.
$naive_mean_prob and $freq_mean_prob - baseline mean P(true class).
$mean_prob - named numeric vector with ML mean P(true class) by method.

Decision rules for interpreting the output

Understanding model performance in context: This is multi-class classification - each mapping group can have 3-10+ candidate categories. A naive random guess yields only ~18% accuracy (1/k where k is the number of candidates). Achieving 50%+ is substantial improvement over random - do not compare these numbers to binary classification benchmarks where 80%+ is typical. The key question is whether ML beats the frequency baseline, not whether it reaches some absolute threshold.

Scenario	Recommendation
ML model performance >> freq across most groups	ML weights add genuine signal; use them
ML model performance $\approx$ freq	ML is no better than frequency; prefer `wei_freq_c2c` (simpler, faster)
ML model performance < freq for many groups	ML is adding noise; do not use ML weights
High skipped-group rate (>20%)	Features may have too many missing values, groups are too small, or method fitting is unstable

Because the train/test split is random, results vary between runs. For more stable estimates, pool more data into ml$data (e.g. multiple survey waves) or run cat2cat_ml_run() several times and average the summaries.

Caveat: high cat2cat_ml_run() model performance means the model discriminates well within mapping groups. It does not validate the mapping table itself. A perfect model with a wrong transition table will still produce wrong results.

These binaries (installable software) and packages are in development.
They may not be fully stable and should be used with caution. We make no claims about them.
Health stats visible at Monitor.

Scenario	Recommendation
ML model performance >> freq across most groups	ML weights add genuine signal; use them
ML model performance \(\approx\) freq	ML is no better than frequency; prefer `wei_freq_c2c` (simpler, faster)
ML model performance < freq for many groups	ML is adding noise; do not use ML weights
High skipped-group rate (>20%)	Features may have too many missing values, groups are too small, or method fitting is unstable

Choosing Weights and Validating ML

Maciej Nasinski

2026-05-17

Step 1: Understand the competing weight assumptions

If ML fails on some rows: on_fail and fail_warn

Step 2: Check whether conclusions are sensitive to the weight choice

Compare weight methods on the same mapped data

Compare pruning strategies only after comparing full weights

Compare ensemble compositions when no single method dominates

Step 3: Validate whether ML actually improves on simpler baselines

What cat2cat_ml_run() is doing

Minimal validation workflow

Compare multiple ML methods in one run

Inspect per-group diagnostics when methods disagree

Decision rules for interpreting the output

If ML fails on some rows: `on_fail` and `fail_warn`

What `cat2cat_ml_run()` is doing