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Make zero-valued calibration targets intentionally nonzero-weighted #104

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Description

@MaxGhenis

Zero-valued targets should still receive nonzero calibration loss weight.

Why:

  • A zero target can be meaningful, especially at small geography levels or sparse breakdowns.
  • If a state or local target is zero but the dataset estimates a positive value, the optimizer should see that error instead of silently ignoring the row.
  • This also makes target diagnostics easier to reason about when expanding the target surface.

Current context:

  • The current fiscal refresh loss weighting appears to use max(abs(target), 1.0) before applying sqrt target-value weights, so zero targets are not literally zero-weighted today.
  • We should make that behavior explicit and protected by tests/diagnostics, not incidental.

Acceptance criteria:

  • Zero-valued amount and count targets get a finite positive loss weight.
  • A regression test covers zero-valued targets under the active amount/count 50/50 target-weighting scheme.
  • The target-weight explorer or calibration diagnostics exposes the number of zero-valued targets and their assigned weight range.
  • Document the intended zero-target treatment near the loss-weighting code.

Activity

  1. juaristi22 commented on Oct 16, 2026

    @juaristi22
    Collaborator

    Addressed by #1198 (commit 1082c68). Under the default scale, zero-valued targets keep a positive loss weight. The solve and score options carry a zero_targets census, and test_zero_targets_keep_a_positive_loss_weight_under_split_weighting pins the behaviour. #1198 said "Addresses #104", so this issue didn't close on merge. The target-weight rule itself is now under #1301.

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