  The strategy of early stopping is a regularization technique based on
choosing a stopping time for an iterative algorithm. Focusing on non-parametric
regression in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space, we analyze the early stopping
strategy for a form of gradient-descent applied to the least-squares loss
function. We propose a data-dependent stopping rule that does not involve
hold-out or cross-validation data, and we prove upper bounds on the squared
error of the resulting function estimate, measured in either the $L^2(P)$ and
$L^2(P_n)$ norm. These upper bounds lead to minimax-optimal rates for various
kernel classes, including Sobolev smoothness classes and other forms of
reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. We show through simulation that our stopping
rule compares favorably to two other stopping rules, one based on hold-out data
and the other based on Stein's unbiased risk estimate. We also establish a
tight connection between our early stopping strategy and the solution path of a
kernel ridge regression estimator.
