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New Approximation Results and Optimal Estimation for Fully Connected Deep Neural Networks

Zhaoji Tang

arXiv 10 Dec 2025 · Econometrics

arXiv:2512.09853 · PDF · Extracted main text

Abstract

\citet{farrell2021deep} establish non-asymptotic high-probability bounds for general deep feedforward neural network (with rectified linear unit activation function) estimators, with \citet[Theorem 1]{farrell2021deep} achieving a suboptimal convergence rate for fully connected feedforward networks. The authors suggest that improved approximation of fully connected networks could yield sharper versions of \citet[Theorem 1]{farrell2021deep} without altering the theoretical framework. By deriving approximation bounds specifically for a narrower fully connected deep neural network, this note demonstrates that \citet[Theorem 1]{farrell2021deep} can be improved to achieve an optimal rate (up to a logarithmic factor). Furthermore, this note briefly shows that deep neural network estimators can mitigate the curse of dimensionality for functions with compositional structure and functions defined on manifolds.

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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Farrell, Max H and Liang, Tengyuan and Misra, Sanjog (2021) Deep neural networks for estimation and inference1.000364100%
2Yarotsky, Dmitry (2017) Error bounds for approximations with deep ReLU networks1.000226100%
3Petersen, Philipp and Zech, Jakob (2024) Mathematical theory of deep learning1.00083100%
4Stone, Charles J (1982) Optimal global rates of convergence for nonparametric regression0.92843100%
5Liu, Ruiqi and Boukai, Ben and Shang, Zuofeng (2022) Optimal nonparametric inference via deep neural network0.87452100%
6Schmidt-Hieber, Johannes (2020) Nonparametric regression using deep neural networks with ReLU activation function0.69351100%
7Brown, Chad (2024) Statistical Properties of Deep Neural Networks with Dependent Data0.64422100%
8Colangelo, Kyle and Lee, Ying-Ying (2025) Double debiased machine learning nonparametric inference with continuous treatments0.64422100%
9Feng, Xingdong and Jiao, Yuling and Kang, Lican and Zhang, Baqun and… (2023) Over-parameterized deep nonparametric regression for dependent data with its applications to reinforcement learning0.64422100%
10Jiao, Yuling and Kang, Lican and Liu, Jin and Lu, Xiliang and Yang,… (2025) Deep approximate policy iteration0.64422100%

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