  This paper studies the prediction of a target $\mathbf{z}$ from a pair of
random variables $(\mathbf{x},\mathbf{y})$, where the ground-truth predictor is
additive $\mathbb{E}[\mathbf{z} \mid \mathbf{x},\mathbf{y}] =
f_\star(\mathbf{x}) +g_{\star}(\mathbf{y})$. We study the performance of
empirical risk minimization (ERM) over functions $f+g$, $f \in F$ and $g \in
G$, fit on a given training distribution, but evaluated on a test distribution
which exhibits covariate shift. We show that, when the class $F$ is "simpler"
than $G$ (measured, e.g., in terms of its metric entropy), our predictor is
more resilient to heterogeneous covariate shifts} in which the shift in
$\mathbf{x}$ is much greater than that in $\mathbf{y}$. Our analysis proceeds
by demonstrating that ERM behaves qualitatively similarly to orthogonal machine
learning: the rate at which ERM recovers the $f$-component of the predictor has
only a lower-order dependence on the complexity of the class $G$, adjusted for
partial non-indentifiability introduced by the additive structure. These
results rely on a novel H\"older style inequality for the Dudley integral which
may be of independent interest. Moreover, we corroborate our theoretical
findings with experiments demonstrating improved resilience to shifts in
"simpler" features across numerous domains.

Machine Learning;Machine Learning