每日简报

采用非参数空间权重的空间动态面板模型半非参数估计AI 解读

We develop a semi-nonparametric framework for spatial dynamic panel data (SDPD) models with two-way fixed effects when the spatial interaction structure is unknown beyond a distance measure. This is accomplished by modelling spatial weights in the outcome, lagged-outcome, and disturbance channels as unknown functions of underlying economic distances. These enter the SDPD system through matrix-function operators, providing a unified approach that accommodates both spatial…

双重差分中的组间处理效应异质性：一种平衡方法AI 解读

Understanding how treatment effects vary across groups is central to policy evaluation. In Difference-in-Differences designs, heterogeneity is often studied using subgroup or triple-difference analyses, which can suffer from conservative inference, reliance on parametric interaction structures, and sensitivity to differences in covariate distributions across groups. We propose the Balanced Group Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (BGATT), a new estimand that isolates…

内生网络形成下的异质同伴效应AI 解读

This paper introduces a new econometric framework for modeling social interactions with heterogeneous peer responses, addressing endogenous link formation. Our Selection-corrected Heterogeneous Spatial Autoregressive (SCHSAR) approach jointly models link formation and outcome determination. We incorporate a finite mixture structure to capture heterogeneity in peer effects and account for unobserved individual-specific factors driving both network formation and outcome…

无穷小因果性AI 解读

Interventions can be varied continuously in many causal models. Differentiating a specified smooth intervention protocol produces vector fields on a statistical model, and their Lie brackets describe the noncommutativity of the corresponding local perturbations. We formulate this differential geometry of interventions on smooth statistical models and call the resulting framework infinitesimal causality (IC). Given a constant-rank distribution spanned by visible intervention…

具有潜在组结构的矩阵值网络自回归模型AI 解读

Matrix-valued time series data are frequently observed in a broad range of areas and have attracted great attention recently. In this work, we model network effects for high dimensional matrix-valued time series data in a matrix autoregression framework. To characterize the potential heterogeneity of the subjects and handle the high dimensionality simultaneously, we assume that each subject has a latent group label, which enables us to cluster the subject into the…

随机对照试验中 AIPW 估计器 Wald 区间覆盖率的模型无关界AI 解读

Nonparametric estimators, such as the augmented inverse probability weighted (AIPW) estimator, have become increasingly popular in causal inference. Numerous nonparametric estimators have been proposed, but they are all asymptotically normal with the same asymptotic variance under similar conditions, leaving little guidance for practitioners to choose an estimator. In this paper, I focus on another important perspective of their asymptotic behaviors beyond asymptotic…

放宽可迁移性假设的随机试验效应外推：美国选举政治广告案例AI 解读

During the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Aggarwal et al. (2023) conducted a large-scale randomized experiment to evaluate a digital ad campaign against Trump in five battleground states. While the study found no effect on voter turnout, it's unclear whether this null result generalizes to other battleground states, notably Georgia, which played a unique role in the 2020 election and differs from the battleground states. Inspired by the study, we present a transfer…

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…

基于大语言模型的 A/B 测试：人类因果推断的替代终点框架AI 解读

Organizations and researchers show increasing interest in using large language models (LLMs) in place of human participants in A/B tests, in the hope of experimenting faster and at lower cost. We study when a treatment effect estimated on LLM outcomes can recover the effect for the human population of interest. Distributional equivalence between LLM and human outcomes would make any standard estimator valid but is unrealistic. We therefore develop a statistical framework…

传统分解与因果分解何时分歧？健康差异研究的实用指南AI 解读

Identifying malleable factors that can reduce social disparities is a central objective among researchers across disciplines. Traditionally, researchers have relied on the difference-in-coefficients and Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder frameworks. More recently, methods grounded in the potential outcomes framework have emerged. While these methods share the same goal of identifying drivers of disparity, they frequently yield divergent results depending on the underlying confounding…

网络化风险感知与行为泡沫：疫情案例AI 解读

Risk perception is typically modeled as an individual cognitive readout of objective hazard, yet during crises what people judge as risky is shaped by what their peers do. Using weekly mobility data from 313 Massachusetts municipalities over the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic and a pre-pandemic inter-town mobility network that fixes interaction structure before the shock, we estimate two-way fixed-effects panel regressions that separate local case response, inter-town…