每日简报

网络干扰结构误设下的因果推断AI 解读

Under interference, the treatment of one unit may affect the outcomes of other units. Such interference patterns between units are typically represented by a network. Correctly specifying this network requires identifying which units can affect others -- an inherently challenging task. Nevertheless, most existing approaches assume that a known and accurate network specification is given. In this paper, we study the consequences of such misspecification. We derive bounds on…

基于矩的投影变化在线检测：何时重训深度学习模型或调整组合AI 解读

Training deep learning neural networks often requires massive amounts of computational ressources. We propose to sequentially monitor network predictions to trigger retraining only if the predictions are no longer valid. This can reduce drastically computational costs and opens a door to green deep learning. Our approach is based on the relationship to projected second moments monitoring, a problem also arising in other areas such as computational finance. Various open-end…

序贯网络博弈中的个体化处理分配AI 解读

Designing individualized allocation of treatments so as to maximize the equilibrium welfare of interacting agents has many policy-relevant applications. Focusing on sequential decision games of interacting agents, this paper develops a method to obtain optimal treatment assignment rules that maximize a social welfare criterion by evaluating stationary distributions of outcomes. Stationary distributions in sequential decision games are given by Gibbs distributions, which are…

稀疏高维向量自回归自助法AI 解读

We introduce a high-dimensional multiplier bootstrap for time series data based on capturing dependence through a sparsely estimated vector autoregressive model. We prove its consistency for inference on high-dimensional means under two different moment assumptions on the errors, namely sub-gaussian moments and a finite number of absolute moments. In establishing these results, we derive a Gaussian approximation for the maximum mean of a linear process, which may be of…

SelectionBias：计算因果目标量选择偏差界的 R 包AI 解读

Selection bias may arise when there are dropouts or missing data in the analysis, or when subjects are included or excluded in the analysis based upon some selection criteria for the study population. Selection bias can jeopardize the validity of the study and a sensitivity analysis for assessing the effect of the selection is desired. Recently, there has been a surge of results for selection bias in causal inference, with several suggestions for sensitivity analyses. One…

具有因果解释的随机效应元分析AI 解读

Recent work has made important contributions in the development of causally-interpretable meta-analysis. These methods transport treatment effects estimated in a collection of randomized trials to a target population of interest. Ideally, estimates targeted toward a specific population are more interpretable and relevant to policy-makers and clinicians. However, between-study heterogeneity not arising from differences in the distribution of treatment effect modifiers can…

未测混杂下 PreventS 试验平均处理效应的贝叶斯推断AI 解读

Using the PreventS trial data, our objective is to estimate average effects of a Health Wellness Coaching (HWC) intervention on improvement of cardiovascular health at 9 months post randomization and in three consecutive 3-month periods over 9 months post randomization. Conventional approaches, including instrumental variable models, are not applicable in the presence of multiple correlated multivalued exposures and unmeasured confounding. We propose a causal framework and…

以深度学习时间序列因果推断量化北极放大的成因AI 解读

The warming of the Arctic, also known as Arctic amplification, is led by several atmospheric and oceanic drivers. However, the details of its underlying thermodynamic causes are still unknown. Inferring the causal effects of atmospheric processes on sea ice melt using fixed treatment effect strategies leads to unrealistic counterfactual estimations. Such models are also prone to bias due to time-varying confoundedness. Further, the complex non-linearity in Earth science data…

随机拥堵下的实验设计与估计AI 解读

We study randomized experiments in a service system when stochastic congestion can arise from temporarily limited supply or excess demand. Such congestion gives rise to cross-unit interference between the waiting customers, and analytic strategies that do not account for this interference may be biased. In current practice, one of the most widely used ways to address stochastic congestion is to use switchback experiments that alternatively turn a target intervention on and…

高维协变量下局部平均处理效应的识别稳健推断AI 解读

This paper presents an inference method for the local average treatment effect (LATE) in the presence of high-dimensional covariates, regardless of the strength of identification. We propose an orthogonalized Anderson-Rubin test statistic that maintains uniformly valid asymptotic size. We provide an easy-to-implement algorithm for inferring the high-dimensional LATE by inverting our test statistic and employing the double/debiased machine learning method. Simulation results…

基于线性高斯状态空间混合模型与 EM 算法的时间序列聚类AI 解读

In this paper, we consider the task of clustering a set of individual time series while modeling each cluster, that is, model-based time series clustering. The task requires a parametric model with sufficient flexibility to describe the dynamics in various time series. To address this problem, we propose a novel model-based time series clustering method with mixtures of linear Gaussian state space models, which have high flexibility. The proposed method uses a new…

欧洲碳与能源价格的波动和依赖关系建模AI 解读

We study the prices of European Emission Allowances (EUA), whereby we analyze their uncertainty and dependencies on related energy prices (natural gas, coal, and oil). We propose a probabilistic multivariate conditional time series model with a VECM-Copula-GARCH structure which exploits key characteristics of the data. Data are normalized with respect to inflation and carbon emissions to allow for proper cross-series evaluation. The forecasting performance is evaluated in an…

利用因果生存森林估计右删失数据中的异质性处理效应AI 解读

Forest-based methods have recently gained in popularity for non-parametric treatment effect estimation. Building on this line of work, we introduce causal survival forests, which can be used to estimate heterogeneous treatment effects in a survival and observational setting where outcomes may be right-censored. Our approach relies on orthogonal estimating equations to robustly adjust for both censoring and selection effects under unconfoundedness. In our experiments, we find…

何时可以忽略运行变量中的测量误差AI 解读

In many applications of regression discontinuity designs, the running variable used by the administrator to assign treatment is only observed with error. We show that, provided the observed running variable (i) correctly classifies the treatment assignment, and (ii) affects the conditional means of the potential outcomes smoothly, ignoring the measurement error nonetheless yields an estimate with a causal interpretation: the average treatment effect for units whose observed…

合成控制的识别与推断：近端因果推断框架AI 解读

Synthetic control (SC) methods are commonly used to estimate the treatment effect on a single treated unit in panel data settings. An SC is a weighted average of control units built to match the treated unit, with weights typically estimated by regressing (summaries of) pre-treatment outcomes and measured covariates of the treated unit to those of the control units. However, it has been established that in the absence of a good fit, such regression estimator will generally…

混合效应模型下选择偏差问题的软校准AI 解读

Calibration weighting has been widely used to correct selection biases in non-probability sampling, missing data, and causal inference. The main idea is to calibrate the biased sample to the benchmark by adjusting the subject weights. However, hard calibration can produce enormous weights when an exact calibration is enforced on a large set of extraneous covariates. This article proposes a soft calibration scheme, in which the outcome and the selection indicator follow…

快速可靠的聚类稳健 Jackknife 与 Bootstrap 推断方法AI 解读

We provide computationally attractive methods to obtain jackknife-based cluster-robust variance matrix estimators (CRVEs) for linear regression models estimated by least squares. We also propose several new variants of the wild cluster bootstrap, which involve these CRVEs, jackknife-based bootstrap data-generating processes, or both. Extensive simulation experiments suggest that the new methods can provide much more reliable inferences than existing ones in cases where the…

合成双重差分估计的 Stata 实现AI 解读

In this paper, we describe a computational implementation of the Synthetic difference-in-differences (SDID) estimator of Arkhangelsky et al. (2021) for Stata. Synthetic difference-in-differences can be used in a wide class of circumstances where treatment effects on some particular policy or event are desired, and repeated observations on treated and untreated units are available over time. We lay out the theory underlying SDID, both when there is a single treatment adoption…

在有向无环图中表示确定性变量：辅助识别与解释因果效应AI 解读

Deterministic variables are variables that are fully explained by one or more parent variables. They commonly arise when a variable has been algebraically constructed from one or more parent variables, as with composite variables, and in compositional data, where the 'whole' variable is determined from its 'parts'. This article introduces how deterministic variables may be depicted within directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) to help with identifying and interpreting causal effects…

BaCaDI：干预目标未知时的贝叶斯因果发现AI 解读

Inferring causal structures from experimentation is a central task in many domains. For example, in biology, recent advances allow us to obtain single-cell expression data under multiple interventions such as drugs or gene knockouts. However, the targets of the interventions are often uncertain or unknown and the number of observations limited. As a result, standard causal discovery methods can no longer be reliably used. To fill this gap, we propose a Bayesian framework…

非参数条件局部独立性检验AI 解读

Conditional local independence is an asymmetric independence relation among continuous time stochastic processes. It describes whether the evolution of one process is directly influenced by another process given the histories of additional processes, and it is important for the description and learning of causal relations among processes. We develop a model-free framework for testing the hypothesis that a counting process is conditionally locally independent of another…

抵御混杂影响的稳健因果图表示学习AI 解读

The prevailing graph neural network models have achieved significant progress in graph representation learning. However, in this paper, we uncover an ever-overlooked phenomenon: the pre-trained graph representation learning model tested with full graphs underperforms the model tested with well-pruned graphs. This observation reveals that there exist confounders in graphs, which may interfere with the model learning semantic information, and current graph representation…

存在地区干扰时的政策相关因果效应估计：费城饮料税应用AI 解读

To comprehensively evaluate a public policy intervention, researchers must consider the effects of the policy not just on the implementing region, but also nearby, indirectly-affected regions. For example, an excise tax on sweetened beverages in Philadelphia was shown to not only be associated with a decrease in volume sales of taxed beverages in Philadelphia, but also an increase in sales in bordering counties not subject to the tax. The latter association may be explained…

mbsts 包：R 中的多变量贝叶斯结构时间序列模型AI 解读

The multivariate Bayesian structural time series (MBSTS) model is a general machine learning model that deals with inference and prediction for multiple correlated time series, where one also has the choice of using a different candidate pool of contemporaneous predictors for each target series. The MBSTS model has wide applications and is ideal for feature selection, time series forecasting, nowcasting, inferring causal impact, and others. This paper demonstrates how to use…