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I am in R using the DoctorVisits dataset from the AER package. I chose the column lchronic to make this tree enter image description here

Thing is that I don't understand why the algorithm made the branch freerepat: no seeing as it results in two leaves which are both no. The tree is basically equivalent to this pruned one:enter image description here

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  • $\begingroup$ Maybe you could ask the package authors? $\endgroup$ – kjetil b halvorsen♦ Jan 21 at 18:33
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    $\begingroup$ For rare events, one might expect every leaf of a tree to be a no. Some “no”’s may just be more likely than others. $\endgroup$ – guy Jan 21 at 18:46
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Decision trees (generally) choose splits to minimize impurity within the nodes. If a split can change a 75% "no" node into two children with 99% no and 51% no (respectively), then it is reasonably likely to do so, even if the final predicted (majority) class in both children is "no".

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