Minimax Rates for Conditional Generative Learning under Wasserstein Loss

Sungwon Park, Kyoung-Sook Moon, Hongjoong Kim

We study minimax rates for conditional generative learning under integrated Wasserstein loss, with Hölder continuous conditional laws and an unrestricted covariate distribution. We evaluate unrestricted generators through their conditional output distributions. For expected Wasserstein loss, the minimax rate agrees with the rate under uniform covariates and follows from balancing localization bias against unconditional distribution estimation error. Higher moments of the loss can instead be dominated by unobserved covariate regions, which force an additional risk contribution of order $n^{-1}$, where $n$ is the sample size. An adaptive localization argument gives matching upper bounds. The results cover unrestricted response laws and possibly vanishing Besov densities for $W_1$, and extend to higher Wasserstein orders under uniform response density bounds and integrability conditions. A multiscale lower bound closes the logarithmic gap in unconditional $W_1$ minimax rates in dimension two for both unrestricted distributions and Besov density classes. We also establish minimax rates for conditional Brenier maps under density, integrability, and uniform curvature conditions.