每日简报

纵向数据中罕见事件反事实风险的可扩展估计AI 解读

Estimating the causal effect of time-varying treatments on survival outcomes in large observational studies is computationally demanding, particularly when outcomes are rare. While g-formula-based methods such as the iterative conditional expectation (ICE) estimator provide a principled framework for longitudinal causal inference, they become computationally expensive, especially when bootstrap-based variance estimation is required. In addition, outcome rarity at each time…

非线性福利目标下的数据自动化政策学习AI 解读

This paper explores policy learning from observational data, focusing on a nonlinear welfare criterion in a binary treatment setting. The nonlinear criterion is inspired by scenarios where policymakers prioritize specific population segments. We model this criterion using a utility function that encompasses potential outcomes and intermediate parameters, with the latter capturing higher moments of the outcome distributions. When formulated in the context of observational…

超越主层可忽略性：主层分层的非参数敏感性界AI 解读

Principal stratification is an effective framework addressing intermediate variables in causal inference. However, point identification of the principal causal effects (PCEs) often requires the untestable principal ignorability (PI) assumption. This article develops a nonparametric sensitivity analysis framework for evaluating PI violations. We introduce a margin-free bounding factor parameterized by the selection and outcome relative risks of an unmeasured confounder. Using…

高阶有效估计量：综述与模拟基准研究AI 解读

Higher-order efficient estimators extend standard first-order semiparametric estimators by replacing second-order residuals with third- or higher-order terms, potentially enabling asymptotic efficiency under slower nuisance function convergence rates and improving finite-sample performance. Existing methods achieve higher-order expansions through structurally different approximation strategies, including basis truncation, kernel smoothing, and highly adaptive lasso (HAL)…

部分识别离散响应模型的随机集分位数估计AI 解读

Semiparametric discrete choice models are widely applied in economics, yet a fundamental tension arises when covariates are discrete as regression coefficients that are point identified under continuous regressors may become only partially identified. We show that this is not merely an identification problem but creates serious estimation pathologies. Classical estimators, including the maximum score estimator of Manski (1975), not only have population maximizers that are…

住房环境便利设施的直接价格效应：回归与因果机器学习的模拟评估AI 解读

Hedonic price models are widely used to assess how environmental amenities affect property values, yet methodological guidance for estimating direct price effects remains sparse. We conduct an empirical Monte Carlo simulation to evaluate the performance of traditional and causal machine learning approaches for estimating the direct unmediated price effect of spatially delineated amenities on treated properties (DUET), a conservative lower-bound approximation for welfare…

含同期效应与指数族噪声的可识别马尔可夫切换模型AI 解读

Temporal systems often exhibit non-stationary behaviour, such as seasonal climate variation or glucose fluctuations in patients with type-1 diabetes. One way to model non-stationarity is through discrete latent regimes, i.e., stationary segments of time. Such systems induce a Markov Switching Model (MSM), a class of Hidden Markov Models with autoregressive dependencies among latent regimes and observed variables. Identifying latent regimes is challenging in the presence of…

一般处理模型中的高阶去偏估计器AI 解读

It is now well known that estimators based on influence functions can be sub-optimal in terms of convergence rates in various settings. To address this issue, higher-order influence functions (HOIF) are developed, generalizing the classical semiparametric theory. However, most existing results in this regard focus on treatment effect parameters defined in explicit forms, such as average treatment effects (ATE). In applications, economists are often confronted with tasks of…

处理变化何时能够识别因果效应？AI 解读

This paper clarifies the identifying assumptions underlying causal inference based on treatment changes rather than levels, and their relationship to conventional identification strategies. We characterize two structural models, with non-nested assumptions, under which treatment-change identification is valid conditional on observed covariates by differencing out time-constant confounders that are additive in the treatment equation. The assumptions underlying treatment…

协变量条件平行趋势下的双重差分AI 解读

We consider difference-in-differences identification and estimation strategies when the parallel trends assumption holds conditional on covariates, which can be time-varying, time-invariant, or both. We uncover several weaknesses of two-way fixed effects (TWFE) regressions in this context. The most important, which we call \textit{hidden linearity bias}, arises because transformations that eliminate unit fixed effects also transform the covariates, either implicitly changing…

双侧测量误差下的分布效应：代际收入流动应用AI 解读

This paper considers identification and estimation of distributional effect parameters that depend on the joint distribution of an outcome and another variable of interest ("treatment") in a setting with "two-sided" measurement error -- that is, where both variables are possibly measured with error. Examples of these parameters in the context of intergenerational income mobility include transition matrices, rank-rank correlations, and the poverty rate of children as a…

用显示偏好度量隐藏的消费者异质性AI 解读

Consumer heterogeneity in revealed-preference data is larger than bilateral rationality tests can reveal. We construct a continuous nonparametric metric of this hidden heterogeneity by repeatedly subsampling choices, partitioning agents into groups whose pooled data are jointly rationalisable under a chosen consistency criterion and recording how often each pair is co-classified. The resulting kernel is positive semi-definite, embeds the population in a Hilbert space, and…

用于因果不确定性量化的干预过程AI 解读

Reliable uncertainty quantification for causal effects is crucial in high-stakes applications, but remains challenging when the target is an entire function rather than a scalar estimand. In this work, we introduce a GP-based approach for uncertainty quantification of interventional functions. The central idea is to build on recent work representing interventional functions as an inner-product of observational functions in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS), by…

因果效应识别中的选择偏差：走向整体理解AI 解读

Selection bias is pervasive in observational studies. For example, large scale biobanks data can exhibit ``healthy volunteer bias'' when respondents are healthier and of higher socio-economic status than the population they are meant to represent. Recovering causal effects from such sub-population is an important problem in causal inference, as estimating average treatment effects (ATE) from selected populations can result in a severely biased estimate of the ATE from the…

利用历史汇总数据支持个体化治疗建议的贝叶斯自适应富集设计AI 解读

Adaptive enrichment trials aim to identify and recruit participants most likely to benefit from treatment based on evolving biomarker evidence, with the goal of informing individualized treatment recommendations. Bayesian methods are well suited to these designs because they allow external information to be incorporated in a principled manner. In practice, prior studies often provide only summary-level information, with subgroup-specific estimates unavailable due to design…

检验研究文献是否统计功效不足AI 解读

How many experimental studies would have come to different conclusions had they been run on larger samples? I show how to estimate the expected number of statistically significant results that a set of experiments would have reported had their sample sizes all been counterfactually increased. The proposed deconvolution estimator is asymptotically normal and adjusts for publication bias. Unlike related methods, this approach requires no assumptions of any kind about the…

通过经验福利最大化进行时间序列政策选择AI 解读

This paper develops a novel method for policy choice in a dynamic setting where the available data is a multivariate time series. Overcoming challenges unique to time-series setting such as time-varying environments, history-dependent welfare, dynamic causal effects, and statistical dependence, we propose Time-series Empirical Welfare Maximization (T-EWM) methods. We characterize conditions for T-EWM to consistently learn optimal policies conditional or unconditional on the…