每日简报

DoubleML：R 中双重机器学习的面向对象实现AI 解读

The R package DoubleML implements the double/debiased machine learning framework of Chernozhukov et al. (2018). It provides functionalities to estimate parameters in causal models based on machine learning methods. The double machine learning framework consist of three key ingredients: Neyman orthogonality, high-quality machine learning estimation and sample splitting. Estimation of nuisance components can be performed by various state-of-the-art machine learning methods…

DoWhy-GCM：用于图因果模型推断的 DoWhy 扩展AI 解读

We present DoWhy-GCM, an extension of the DoWhy Python library, which leverages graphical causal models. Unlike existing causality libraries, which mainly focus on effect estimation, DoWhy-GCM addresses diverse causal queries, such as identifying the root causes of outliers and distributional changes, attributing causal influences to the data generating process of each node, or diagnosis of causal structures. With DoWhy-GCM, users typically specify cause-effect relations via…

线性回归中的污染偏差AI 解读

We study regressions with multiple treatments and a set of controls that is flexible enough to purge omitted variable bias. We show that these regressions generally fail to estimate convex averages of heterogeneous treatment effects -- instead, estimates of each treatment's effect are contaminated by non-convex averages of the effects of other treatments. We discuss three estimation approaches that avoid such contamination bias, including the targeting of easiest-to-estimate…

观察性研究中处理效应估计的差异性回忆偏差AI 解读

Observational studies are frequently used to estimate the effect of an exposure or treatment on an outcome. To obtain an unbiased estimate of the treatment effect, it is crucial to measure the exposure accurately. A common type of exposure misclassification is recall bias, which occurs in retrospective cohort studies when study subjects may inaccurately recall their past exposure. Particularly challenging is differential recall bias in the context of self-reported binary…

含时变协变量的双重差分AI 解读

This paper considers identification and estimation of causal effect parameters from participating in a binary treatment in a difference in differences (DID) setup when the parallel trends assumption holds after conditioning on observed covariates. Relative to existing work in the econometrics literature, we consider the case where the value of covariates can change over time and, potentially, where participating in the treatment can affect the covariates themselves. We…

纵向与面板数据的因果模型：综述AI 解读

In this survey we discuss the recent causal panel data literature. This recent literature has focused on credibly estimating causal effects of binary interventions in settings with longitudinal data, emphasizing practical advice for empirical researchers. It pays particular attention to heterogeneity in the causal effects, often in situations where few units are treated and with particular structures on the assignment pattern. The literature has extended earlier work on…

利用工具变量对闭环随机线性系统进行非渐近状态空间识别AI 解读

The paper suggests a generalization of the Sign-Perturbed Sums (SPS) finite sample system identification method for the identification of closed-loop observable stochastic linear systems in state-space form. The solution builds on the theory of matrix-variate regression and instrumental variable methods to construct distribution-free confidence regions for the state-space matrices. Both direct and indirect identification are studied, and the exactness as well as the strong…

异质性部分干扰下观测研究处理效应的半参数估计AI 解读

In many observational studies in social science and medicine, subjects or units are connected, and one unit's treatment and attributes may affect another's treatment and outcome, violating the stable unit treatment value assumption (SUTVA) and resulting in interference. To enable feasible estimation and inference, many previous works assume exchangeability of interfering units (neighbors). However, in many applications with distinctive units, interference is heterogeneous…

潜在因子模型协方差矩阵的结构化先验AI 解读

Factor models are widely used for dimension reduction in the analysis of multivariate data. This is achieved through decomposition of a p x p covariance matrix into the sum of two components. Through a latent factor representation, they can be interpreted as a diagonal matrix of idiosyncratic variances and a shared variation matrix, that is, the product of a p x k factor loadings matrix and its transpose. If k << p, this defines a parsimonious factorisation of the covariance…

稳定的可微分因果发现AI 解读

Inferring causal relationships as directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) is an important but challenging problem. Differentiable Causal Discovery (DCD) is a promising approach to this problem, framing the search as a continuous optimization. But existing DCD methods are numerically unstable, with poor performance beyond tens of variables. In this paper, we propose Stable Differentiable Causal Discovery (SDCD), a new method that improves previous DCD methods in two ways: (1) It…

随机区组与再随机化实验中 Lasso 调整的设计型理论AI 解读

Blocking, a special case of rerandomization, is routinely implemented in the design stage of randomized experiments to balance the baseline covariates. This study proposes a regression adjustment method based on the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (Lasso) to efficiently estimate the average treatment effect in randomized block experiments with high-dimensional covariates. We derive the asymptotic properties of the proposed estimator and outline the conditions…

基于潜在排斥混合模型的高维数据贝叶斯聚类AI 解读

Model-based clustering of moderate or large dimensional data is notoriously difficult. We propose a model for simultaneous dimensionality reduction and clustering by assuming a mixture model for a set of latent scores, which are then linked to the observations via a Gaussian latent factor model. This approach was recently investigated by Chandra et al. (2023). The authors use a factor-analytic representation and assume a mixture model for the latent factors. However,…

粗糙波动率的统计推断：中心极限定理AI 解读

In recent years, there has been a substantive interest in rough volatility models. In this class of models, the local behavior of stochastic volatility is much more irregular than semimartingales and resembles that of a fractional Brownian motion with Hurst parameter $H < 0.5$. In this paper, we derive a consistent and asymptotically mixed normal estimator of $H$ based on high-frequency price observations. In contrast to previous works, we work in a semiparametric setting…

随机实验中的最小最大遗憾样本选择AI 解读

Randomized controlled trials are often run in settings with many subpopulations that may have differential benefits from the treatment being evaluated. We consider the problem of sample selection, i.e., whom to enroll in a randomized trial, such as to optimize welfare in a heterogeneous population. We formalize this problem within the minimax-regret framework, and derive optimal sample-selection schemes under a variety of conditions. Using data from a COVID-19 vaccine trial,…

捆绑商品补贴的学习效应：半参数方法AI 解读

Can temporary subsidies to bundles induce long-run changes in demand due to learning about the quality of one of the constituent goods? This paper provides theoretical support and empirical evidence on this mechanism. Theoretically, we introduce a model where an agent learns about the quality of an innovation through repeated consumption. We then assess the predictions of our theory in a randomised experiment in a ridesharing platform. The experiment subsidised car trips…

提高平均处理效应跨人群迁移的估计效率AI 解读

We develop flexible, semiparametric estimators of the average treatment effect (ATE) transported to a new population ("target population") that offer potential efficiency gains. Transport may be of value when the ATE may differ across populations. We consider the setting where differences in the ATE are due to differences in the distribution of baseline covariates that modify the treatment effect ("effect modifiers"). First, we propose a collaborative one-step semiparametric…

用于估计含潜变量因果结构的广义独立噪声条件AI 解读

We investigate the task of learning causal structure in the presence of latent variables, including locating latent variables and determining their quantity, and identifying causal relationships among both latent and observed variables. To this end, we propose a Generalized Independent Noise (GIN) condition for linear non-Gaussian acyclic causal models that incorporate latent variables, which establishes the independence between a linear combination of certain measured…

Cox 模型的通信高效分布式估计与推断AI 解读

Motivated by multi-center biomedical studies that cannot share individual data due to privacy and ownership concerns, we develop communication-efficient iterative distributed algorithms for estimation and inference in the high-dimensional sparse Cox proportional hazards model. We demonstrate that our estimator, even with a relatively small number of iterations, achieves the same convergence rate as the ideal full-sample estimator under very mild conditions. To construct…

迈向因果基础模型：因果推断与注意力机制的对偶关系AI 解读

Foundation models have brought changes to the landscape of machine learning, demonstrating sparks of human-level intelligence across a diverse array of tasks. However, a gap persists in complex tasks such as causal inference, primarily due to challenges associated with intricate reasoning steps and high numerical precision requirements. In this work, we take a first step towards building causally-aware foundation models for treatment effect estimations. We propose a novel,…

通过双阶段扰动检验实现必要性与充分性特征归因AI 解读

We investigate the problem of explainability for machine learning models, focusing on Feature Attribution Methods (FAMs) that evaluate feature importance through perturbation tests. Despite their utility, FAMs struggle to distinguish the contributions of different features, when their prediction changes are similar after perturbation. To enhance FAMs' discriminative power, we introduce Feature Attribution with Necessity and Sufficiency (FANS), which find a neighborhood of…

小规模先导实验下奈曼分配的表现AI 解读

The Neyman Allocation is used in many papers on experimental design, which typically assume that researchers have access to large pilot studies. This may be unrealistic. To understand the properties of the Neyman Allocation with small pilots, we study its behavior in an asymptotic framework that takes pilot size to be fixed even as the size of the main wave tends to infinity. Our analysis shows that the Neyman Allocation can lead to estimates of the ATE with higher…

用于因果效应估计的校准与共形倾向得分AI 解读

Propensity scores are commonly used to estimate treatment effects from observational data. We argue that the probabilistic output of a learned propensity score model should be calibrated -- i.e., a predictive treatment probability of 90% should correspond to 90% of individuals being assigned the treatment group -- and we propose simple recalibration techniques to ensure this property. We prove that calibration is a necessary condition for unbiased treatment effect estimation…

将增广平衡权重表示为线性回归AI 解读

We provide a novel characterization of augmented balancing weights, also known as automatic debiased machine learning (AutoDML). These popular doubly robust or de-biased machine learning estimators combine outcome modeling with balancing weights - weights that achieve covariate balance directly in lieu of estimating and inverting the propensity score. When the outcome and weighting models are both linear in some (possibly infinite) basis, we show that the augmented estimator…

二元 de Bruijn 过程AI 解读

Binary time series data are very common in many applications, and are typically modelled independently via a Bernoulli process with a single probability of success. However, the probability of a success can be dependent on the outcome successes of past events. Presented here is a novel approach for modelling binary time series data called a binary de Bruijn process which takes into account temporal correlation. The structure is derived from de Bruijn Graphs - a directed…