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存在内生性时 probit 与 tobit 模型的边际效应AI 解读

Summary When evaluating partial effects, it is important to distinguish between structural endogeneity and measurement errors. In contrast to linear models, these two sources of endogeneity affect partial effects differently in non-linear models. We study this issue, focusing on the instrumental variable (IV) probit and tobit models. We show that even when a valid instrumental variable is available, failing to differentiate between the two types of endogeneity can lead to…

基因与环境交互作用的经济学与计量方法AI 解读

Abstract We discuss how to estimate the interplay between genes (nature) and environments (nurture), with an empirical illustration of the moderating effect of school starting age on one’s genetic predisposition towards educational attainment. We argue that gene–environment (G×E) studies can be instrumental for (i) assessing treatment effect heterogeneity, (ii) testing theoretical predictions, and (iii) uncovering mechanisms, thereby improving understanding of how (policy)…

Abstract I partially identify the marginal treatment effect (MTE) when the treatment is misclassified. I explore two restrictions, allowing for dependence between the instrument and the misclassification decision. If the signs of the propensity scores’ derivatives are equal, I identify the MTE sign. If those derivatives are similar, I bound the MTE. To illustrate, I analyze the impact of alternative sentences (fines and community service versus no punishment) on recidivism…

面板数据中的缓慢变动个体AI 解读

Panel data often contain stayers and slow movers . The literature proposes an estimator for the average partial effects (APEs) for this setting without a formal theory. The literature is also silent about inference in the presence of stayers and many slow movers. We contribute to this state of the art. First, we develop an asymptotic theory to guarantee that such an estimator is consistent in the presence of stayers and slow movers. Second, we propose its standard error.…

通过因果表征学习构建可解释的深度生成模型AI 解读

Recent developments in generative artificial intelligence (AI) rely on machine learning techniques such as deep learning and generative modeling to achieve state-of-the-art performance across wide-ranging domains. These methods’ surprising performance is due in part to their ability to learn implicit “representations” of complex, multi-modal data. Unfortunately, deep neural networks are notoriously black boxes that obscure these representations, making them difficult to…

未测量混杂下的连续行动强化学习AI 解读

This article addresses the challenge of offline policy learning in continuous action spaces when unmeasured confounders are present. While most existing research focuses on policy evaluation within partially observable Markov decision processes (POMDPs) and assumes discrete action spaces, we advance this field by establishing a novel identification result to enable the nonparametric estimation of policy value for a given target policy under an infinite-horizon framework.…

《制药统计中的因果推断》书评AI 解读

Yixin Fang. Boca Raton, FL: Chapman & Hall/CRC Press, 2024, xiv + 231 pp., $130.00(H), ISBN: 978-1-032-56014-4.Causal Inference in Pharmaceutical Statistics is an excellent resource for the practic...

面向因果的稳健性：利用一般噪声干预AI 解读

Since distribution shifts are common in real-world applications, there is a pressing need to develop prediction models that are robust against such shifts. Existing frameworks, such as empirical risk minimization or distributionally robust optimization, either lack generalizability for unseen distributions or rely on postulated distance measures. Alternatively, causality offers a data-driven and structural perspective to robust predictions. However, the assumptions necessary…

最优治疗规则的改进界与推断AI 解读

Point identification of causal effects requires strong assumptions that are unreasonable in many practical settings. However, informative bounds on these effects can often be derived under plausible assumptions. Even when these bounds are wide or cover null effects, they can guide practical decisions based on formal decision theoretic criteria. Here we derive new results on optimal treatment regimes in settings where the effect of interest is bounded. These results are…

整群随机试验中多重中介与溢出效应的贝叶斯非参数方法AI 解读

Cluster randomized trials (CRTs) with multiple unstructured mediators present significant methodological challenges for causal inference due to within-cluster correlation, interference among units, and the complexity introduced by multiple mediators. Existing causal mediation methods often fall short in simultaneously addressing these complexities, particularly in disentangling mediator-specific effects under interference that are central to studying complex mechanisms. To…

饮酒对白质微结构完整性的影响：不完整表型数据的因果推断框架AI 解读

Although substance use, such as alcohol intake, is known to be associated with cognitive decline during aging, its direct influence on the central nervous system remains incompletely understood. In this study, we investigate the influence of alcohol intake frequency on reduction of brain white matter microstructural integrity in the fornix, a brain region considered a promising marker of age-related microstructural degeneration, using a large UK Biobank (UKB) cohort with…

观察性研究中的效应混杂AI 解读

In experimental design, aliasing of effects occurs in fractional factorial experiments, where certain low order factorial effects are indistinguishable from certain high order interactions: low order contrast weights may be orthogonal to one another, while their higher order interactions are aliased and not identified. In observational studies, aliasing occurs when certain combinations of covariates—for example, time period and various eligibility criteria for…

因果顺序的置信集合AI 解读

Causal discovery procedures aim to deduce causal relationships among variables in a multivariate dataset. While various methods have been proposed for estimating a single causal model or a single equivalence class of models, less attention has been given to quantifying uncertainty in causal discovery in terms of confidence statements. A primary challenge in causal discovery of directed acyclic graphs is determining a causal ordering among the variables, and our work offers a…

通过矩阵补全开展在线策略学习与推断AI 解读

Is it possible to make online decisions when personalized covariates are unavailable? We take a collaborative-filtering approach for decision-making based on collective preferences. By assuming low-dimensional latent features, we formulate the covariate-free decision-making problem as a matrix completion bandit. We propose a policy learning procedure that combines an ε-greedy policy for decision-making with an online gradient descent algorithm for bandit parameter…

估计时空异质处理效应的随机试验设计与分析AI 解读

In this article, we consider randomized trial design to evaluate interventions with spatially or spatio-temporally heterogeneous effects. A common approach in this setting is the cluster randomized trial. In many cases, clusters are constituted as discrete subdivisions of a contiguous area of interest. However, cluster trials designed in this way may suffer from issues of spillover and may fail to capture the relevant spatial and temporal effects. We define possible…

结局缺失下的设计型因果推断：缺失机制、插补辅助随机化检验与协变量调整AI 解读

Design-based causal inference, also known as randomization-based or finite-population causal inference, is one of the most widely used causal inference frameworks, largely due to the merit that its validity can be guaranteed by study design (e.g., randomized experiments) and does not require assuming specific outcome-generating distributions or super-population models. Despite its advantages, design-based causal inference can still suffer from other issues, among which…

准实验中的基于设计的不确定性AI 解读

Design-based frameworks of uncertainty are frequently used in settings where the treatment is (conditionally) randomly assigned. This article develops a design-based framework suitable for analyzing quasi-experimental settings in the social sciences, in which the treatment assignment can be viewed as the realization of some stochastic process but there is concern about unobserved selection into treatment. In our framework, treatments are stochastic, but units may differ in…

Contextual sensing and delivery of digital interventions to improve health outcomes have gained significant traction in behavioral and psychiatric studies. Micro-randomized trials (MRTs) are a common experimental design for obtaining data-driven evidence on the effectiveness of digital interventions where each individual is repeatedly randomized to receive treatments over numerous time points. Throughout the study, individual characteristics and contextual factors around…

连续处理的双重去偏机器学习非参数推断AI 解读

We propose a doubly robust inference method for causal effects of continuous treatment variables, under unconfoundedness and with nonparametric or high-dimensional nuisance functions. Our double debiased machine learning (DML) estimators for the average dose-response function (or the average structural function) and the partial effects are asymptotically normal with nonparametric convergence rates. The first-step estimators for the nuisance conditional expectation function…

具有函数型协变量的非参数因果推断AI 解读

Functional data and their analysis have become increasingly popular in various fields of data science. This paper considers estimation and inference of the average treatment effect under unconfoundedness when the covariates involve a functional variable, and proposes the inverse probability weighting estimator, where the propensity score is estimated by utilizing a kernel estimator for functional variables. We establish the n-consistency and asymptotic normality of the…

二元关系数据的双重／去偏机器学习AI 解读

This article presents novel methods and theories for estimation and inference about parameters in statistical models using machine learning for nuisance parameter estimation when data are dyadic. We propose a dyadic cross-fitting method to remove over-fitting biases under arbitrary dyadic dependence. Together with the use of Neyman orthogonal scores, this novel cross-fitting method enables root- n consistent estimation and inference robustly against dyadic dependence. We…

福利改革实验及其儿童影响的结构元分析AI 解读

Using a model of maternal labor supply and investment in children, this paper synthesizes the findings from three separate welfare reform experiments across six sites. The proposed model maps variation in experimental design to parameters that define labor supply behavior, childcare use, and the importance of money and childcare arrangements in the development of child skills. The estimation procedure—which aggregates available evidence to identify the model’s key causal…

协变量自适应随机化下两阶段实验的推断AI 解读

This paper studies inference in two-stage randomized experiments under covariate-adaptive randomization. In the initial stage of this experimental design, clusters (e.g., households, schools, or graph partitions) are stratified and randomly assigned to control or treatment groups based on cluster-level covariates. Subsequently, an independent second-stage design is carried out, wherein units within each treated cluster are further stratified and randomly assigned to either…

高维控制变量下条件平均处理效应的双重稳健推断AI 解读

Plausible identification of conditional average treatment effects (CATEs) can rely on controlling for a large number of variables to account for confounding factors. In these high-dimensional settings, estimation of the CATE requires estimating first-stage models whose consistency relies on correctly specifying their parametric forms. While doubly-robust estimators of the CATE exist, inference procedures based on the second-stage CATE estimator are not doubly-robust. Using…