An elementary proof of the triangle inequality for the Wasserstein metric

Abstract:

We give an elementary proof for the triangle inequality of the $p$-Wasserstein metric for probability measures on separable metric spaces. Unlike known approaches, our proof does not rely on the disintegration theorem in its full generality; therefore the additional assumption that the underlying space is Radon can be omitted. We also supply a proof, not depending on disintegration, that the Wasserstein metric is complete on Polish spaces.