Universal concentration for sums under arbitrary dependence

Abstract

We present a universal concentration bound for sums of random variables under arbitrary dependence, and we prove that it is asymptotically optimal for broad families of marginals admitting a uniform integrable tail-quantile envelope. The bound follows directly from the subadditivity of expected shortfall, a property well known in the risk-measure literature. Our sharpness result relies on an explicit construction of asymptotically extremal couplings. We furthermore provide practical sufficient conditions -- based on convex transformation order comparisons with exponential and power-law envelopes -- under which the bound admits simple, explicit tail profiles.