每日简报

基于群组匹配的因果推断AI 解读

This paper examines methods of causal inference based on groupwise matching when we observe multiple large groups of individuals over several periods. We formulate causal inference validity through a generalized matching condition, generalizing the parallel trend assumption in difference-in-differences designs. We show that difference-in-differences, synthetic control, and synthetic difference-in-differences designs are distinguished by the specific matching conditions that…

发现具有空间结构的时间序列之间的因果关系AI 解读

Causal discovery is the subfield of causal inference concerned with estimating the structure of cause-and-effect relationships in a system of interrelated variables, as opposed to quantifying the strength or describing the form of causal effects. As interest in causal discovery builds in fields such as ecology, public health, and environmental sciences where data are regularly collected with spatial and temporal structures, approaches must evolve to manage autocorrelation…

小群体异质性下的面板斜率同质性检验检测边界AI 解读

Empirical researchers often use slope-homogeneity tests to assess whether slopes can be treated as common across units. A key difficulty is that heterogeneity may be concentrated in a small number of units, so that a failure to reject homogeneity may reflect limited power rather than true homogeneity. We quantify this issue by analyzing the power of standard slope-homogeneity tests under doubly local alternatives - alternatives in which only small groups of units depart from…

单侧不依从随机对照试验中的依从者一般因果效应AI 解读

A randomized controlled trial (RCT) is widely regarded as the gold standard for assessing the causal effect of a treatment or intervention, assuming perfect implementation. In practice, however, randomization can be compromised for various reasons, such as one-sided noncompliance. In this paper, we first systematically study the likelihood-based identifiability in an RCT with one-sided noncompliance. This foundational analysis naturally gives rise to the complier general…

Large language models are increasingly used to classify text at scale. Because their outputs are stochastic, it is common to query a model several times per item and aggregate the results, and latent class models offer a principled way to convert such repeated ratings into estimates of outcome prevalence and of the model's error rates. These models assume that repeated ratings of the same item are conditionally independent given the true label. We examine this assumption…

自适应采集数据下的核处理效应AI 解读

Adaptive experiments improve efficiency by adjusting treatment assignments based on past outcomes, but this adaptivity breaks the i.i.d.\ assumptions that underpin classical asymptotics. At the same time, many questions of interest are distributional, extending beyond average effects. Kernel treatment effects (KTE) provide a flexible framework by representing interventional outcome distributions in an RKHS and comparing them via kernel distances. We present the first…

检验双重差分平行趋势违背时的有效推断AI 解读

The difference-in-differences (DID) research design is a key identification strategy which allows researchers to estimate causal effects under the parallel trends assumption. While the parallel trends assumption is counterfactual and cannot be tested directly, researchers often examine pre-treatment periods to check whether the time trends are parallel before treatment is administered. A recent literature has shown that existing preliminary tests have adverse effects on…

具有连续效果与实施终点的二型混合整群随机试验设计方法比较AI 解读

Hybrid type 2 studies are gaining popularity for their ability to assess both implementation and health outcomes as co-primary endpoints. Often conducted as cluster-randomized trials (CRTs), five design methods can validly power these studies: p-value adjustment methods, combined outcomes approach, single weighted 1-DF test, disjunctive 2-DF test, and conjunctive test. We compared these methods theoretically and numerically. Theoretical comparisons of power equations allowed…

连接预测与归因：利用同化因果推断识别前向与后向因果影响范围AI 解读

Causal inference identifies cause-and-effect relationships between variables. While traditional approaches rely on data to reveal causal links, a recently developed method, assimilative causal inference (ACI), integrates observations with dynamical models. It utilizes Bayesian data assimilation to trace causes back from observed effects by quantifying the reduction in uncertainty. ACI advances the detection of instantaneous causal relationships and the intermittent reversal…

稀疏双边互动模型中的互补性AI 解读

This paper studies complementarities in two-sided interaction models when only a sparse subset of potential matches is realized. I introduce the Tukey model, adding one complementarity parameter to two-way fixed effects. Variation within a four-cycle in the observed matching network identifies this parameter, while connectedness permits identification of agent productivities. I propose a cycle-based estimator that avoids estimating latent productivities. The estimator is…

学习该学什么：结合实验与观察证据的实验设计AI 解读

Experiments deliver credible treatment-effect estimates but, because they are costly, are often restricted to specific sites, small populations, or particular mechanisms. A common practice across several fields is therefore to combine experimental estimates with reduced-form or structural external (observational) evidence to answer broader policy questions, such as those involving general equilibrium effects or external validity. We develop a unified framework for the design…

利用非二元工具变量估计平均处理效应AI 解读

Non-binary instrumental variables, especially continuous ones, are common in practice. A binary recoding induces a Wald ratio but may discard useful variation and reduce efficiency. Although fully nonparametric approaches can in principle use the entire instrument, they often require high-dimensional nuisance estimation which can be unstable with rich covariates. We address this problem by developing a generalized Wald estimand for binary treatments that uses the full…

组成型双重差分AI 解读

Many causal questions involve outcomes distributed across mutually exclusive categories, such as votes by party, employment by status, or electricity generation by energy source, where researchers care about both the shares and the total quantity. It is well known that linear Difference-in-Differences (DiD) methods applied to category shares can produce incoherent counterfactuals and lack a discrete-choice foundation. This paper develops Compositional…

高维细分数据中合成控制模型的高效学习AI 解读

The Synthetic Control method (SC) has become a valuable tool for estimating causal effects. Originally designed for single-treated unit scenarios, it has recently found applications in high-dimensional disaggregated settings with multiple treated units. However, challenges in practical implementation and computational efficiency arise in such scenarios. To tackle these challenges, we propose a novel approach that integrates the Multivariate Square-root Lasso method into the…

智能体经济建模AI 解读

We introduce Agentic Economic Modeling (AEM), a framework that aligns synthetic LLM choices with small-sample human evidence for econometric inference. AEM first generates task-conditioned synthetic choices via LLMs, then learns a bias-correction mapping from task features and raw LLM choices to human-aligned choices, upon which standard econometric estimators perform inference to recover demand elasticities and treatment effects. We validate AEM in two experiments. In a…

边界不连续设计中的估计与推断：基于距离的方法AI 解读

We study nonparametric distance-based (isotropic) local polynomial methods for estimating the boundary average treatment effect curve, a causal functional that captures treatment effect heterogeneity in boundary discontinuity designs. We establish identification, estimation, and inference results both pointwise and uniformly along the treatment assignment boundary. We show that the geometric regularity of the boundary, a one-dimensional manifold, plays a central role in…

混杂变量缺失时的处理效应评估：双重稳健与传统缺失数据方法比较AI 解读

In pharmacoepidemiology, safety and effectiveness are frequently evaluated using readily available administrative and electronic health records data. In these settings, detailed confounder data are often not available in all data sources and therefore missing on a subset of individuals. Multiple imputation (MI) and inverse-probability weighting (IPW) are go-to analytical methods to handle missing data and are dominant in the biomedical literature. Doubly-robust methods,…

利用机器学习估计面板数据连续处理效应：气候应用AI 解读

Economists often estimate continuous treatment effects in panel data using linear two-way fixed effects models (TWFE). When the treatment-outcome relationship is nonlinear, TWFE is misspecifed and potentially biased for the average partial derivative (APD). We develop an automatic double/de-biased machine learning (ADML) estimator that is consistent for the population APD while allowing additive unit fixed effects, nonlinearities, and high dimensional heterogeneity. We prove…

借助大语言模型发现隐含变量并开展因果发现与推理AI 解读

Revealing hidden causal variables alongside the underlying causal mechanisms is essential to the development of science. Despite the progress in the past decades, existing practice in causal discovery (CD) heavily relies on high-quality measured variables, which are usually given by human experts. In fact, the lack of well-defined high-level variables behind unstructured data has been a longstanding roadblock to a broader real-world application of CD. This procedure can…

强化学习数据收集后的统计推断AI 解读

We study estimation and inference using data collected by reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms. These algorithms adaptively experiment by interacting with individual units over multiple stages, updating their strategies based on past outcomes. Our goal is to evaluate a counterfactual policy after data collection and estimate structural parameters, such as dynamic treatment effects, that support credit assignment and quantify the impact of early actions on final outcomes.…

准确估计因果效应时的超参数调优挑战AI 解读

ML is playing an increasingly crucial role in estimating causal effects of treatments on outcomes from observational data. Many ML methods (`causal estimators') have been proposed for this task. All of these methods, as with any ML approach, require extensive hyperparameter tuning. For non-causal predictive tasks, there is a consensus on the choice of tuning metrics (e.g. mean squared error), making it simple to compare models. However, for causal inference tasks, such a…

聚类工具变量模型中多工具与弱工具下的推断AI 解读

Data clustering reduces the effective sample size from the number of observations towards the number of clusters. For instrumental variable models this reduced effective sample size makes the instruments more likely to be weak, in the sense that they contain little information about the endogenous regressor, and many, in the sense that their number is large compared to the sample size. Consequently, weak and many instrument problems for estimators and tests in instrumental…

预后信息的力量：利用结局信息改进协变量平衡检验AI 解读

Scholars frequently use covariate balance tests to test the validity of natural experiments and related designs. Unfortunately, when measured covariates are unrelated to potential outcomes, balance is uninformative about key identification conditions. We show that balance tests can then lead to erroneous conclusions. To build stronger tests, researchers should identify covariates that are jointly predictive of potential outcomes; formally measure and report covariate…

结合实验与观察数据的双重机器学习方法AI 解读

Experimental and observational studies often lack validity due to untestable assumptions. We propose a double machine learning approach to combine experimental and observational studies, allowing practitioners to test for assumption violations and estimate treatment effects consistently. Our framework proposes a falsification test for external validity and ignorability under milder assumptions. We provide consistent treatment effect estimators even when one of the…