On deviation probabilities in non-parametric regression

This paper is devoted to the problem of determining the concentration bounds that are achievable in non-parametric regression. We consider the setting where features are supported on a bounded subset of ℝ^d, the regression function is Lipschitz, and the noise is only assumed to have a finite second moment. We first specify the fundamental limits of the problem by establishing a general lower bound on deviation probabilities, and then construct explicit estimators that achieve this bound. These estimators are obtained by applying the median-of-means principle to classical local averaging rules in non-parametric regression, including nearest neighbors and kernel procedures.