每日简报

用于因果推断的生成式合成数据：陷阱、补救与机会AI 解读

Synthetic tabular data are often evaluated by distributional similarity, privacy distance, or train-on-synthetic-test-on-real predictive performance, but these criteria do not ensure validity for causal inference. We show that fully generative tabular synthesizers, including GAN- and LLM-based models, can preserve predictive utility while distorting average treatment effect (ATE) estimates. The failure is structural: ATE preservation requires both a realistic covariate law…

生存结局的非参数断点回归设计AI 解读

Quasi-experimental evaluations are central for generating real-world causal evidence and complementing insights from randomized trials. The regression discontinuity design (RDD) is a quasi-experimental design that can be used to estimate the causal effect of treatments that are assigned based on a running variable crossing a threshold. Such threshold-based rules are ubiquitous in healthcare, where predictive and prognostic biomarkers frequently guide treatment decisions.…

Neyman 刀切法：干扰下因果推断的设计型方差估计AI 解读

We propose a framework, the Neyman Jackknife, for conservative variance estimation in finite-population causal inference under interference. Our approach provides a general, flexible blueprint that enables conservative variance estimation whenever we are able to recompute our target estimator with some treatment assignments omitted. In classical settings, our approach recovers estimators closely related to the Neyman estimator under SUTVA and the Newey-West HAC variance…

高维多对多对多中介分析AI 解读

We study high-dimensional mediation analysis in which exposures, mediators, and outcomes are all multivariate, and both exposures and mediators may be high-dimensional. We formalize this as a many (exposures)-to-many (mediators)-to-many (outcomes) (MMM) mediation analysis problem. Methodologically, MMM mediation analysis simultaneously performs variable selection for high-dimensional exposures and mediators, estimates the indirect effect matrix (i.e., the coefficient…

不完全信息博弈中单调均衡策略的检验AI 解读

This paper develops a unified framework for testing monotonicity of Bayesian Nash equilibrium strategies in unobserved types in games of incomplete information. We show that, under symmetric independent private types, monotonicity of differentiable equilibrium strategies is equivalent to monotonicity of a quasi-inverse strategy identified from observed actions. This allows the problem to be reformulated as testing a countable set of moment inequalities involving…

利用单一代理变量识别因果效应AI 解读

Unobserved confounding is a key challenge when estimating causal effects from a treatment on an outcome. In this work, we assume that we observe a single, potentially multi-dimensional proxy variable of the unobserved confounder and that we know the mechanism that generates the proxy from the confounder. Under an assumption called Single Proxy Identifiability of Causal Effects or simply SPICE, we prove that this error mechanism is complete and causal effects are…

有序分布变化与保守转移基准：测度、识别与推断AI 解读

Repeated cross-sections reveal changes in ordinal distributions but not the transitions producing them. I axiomatically characterize a threshold-weighted probability metric for ordinal change from threshold-crossing principles. For any threshold-additive ordinal geometry, the discrepancy coincides with the Wasserstein--1 distance induced by that ground metric and measures minimum displacement; its optimizing plans define conservative transition benchmarks. With missing…

高斯图模型用于功能连接分析：面向阿尔茨海默病的统计综述AI 解读

Functional connectivity analysis is an important tool for characterizing interactions among brain regions, particularly in studies of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's disease (AD). Gaussian graphical models (GGMs) provide a promising statistical framework for estimating functional connectivity by capturing conditional dependence relationships among brain regions. Although a variety of regularized precision matrix estimators have been proposed to estimate…

近分离二元数据中惩罚GEE的有限样本方差估计AI 解读

Penalized generalized estimating equations (PGEE) stabilize point estimation for longitudinal binary data under near-separation, but inference still depends on how the sandwich variance is corrected. Existing corrections for PGEE can overadjust in high-leverage directions, require restrictive pooling assumptions, or add global regularization without explaining the bias. We establish first-order asymptotics for PGEE along convergent interior-root sequences and derive a matrix…

序贯重随机化切换实验AI 解读

Large-scale online platforms and marketplace systems often evaluate new policies through experiments that randomize treatment across operational units (e.g., geographies, regions, or clusters) over many time periods. In these settings, standard A/B testing can be inefficient or unreliable due to a limited number of units, substantial cross-unit heterogeneity, non-stationarity, and potential carryover across periods. We propose Sequentially-Rerandomized Switchback Experiments…

序贯无混杂条件下的动态边际政策效应估计AI 解读

We develop methods for estimating how infinitesimal policy changes affect long-term outcomes in dynamic systems. We show that dynamic marginal policy effects (MPEs) can be identified via tractable reduced-form expressions, and can be estimated under a general sequential unconfoundedness assumption. We also propose a doubly robust estimator for dynamic MPEs. Our approach does not require observing full dynamic state information (as is typically assumed for off-policy…

存在未测量混杂时连续时间动态处理的因果效应估计AI 解读

Modern medical research demands specialized causal inference methods evaluating complex continuous-time dynamic treatment regimens using observational data. For instance, obtaining the causal effects of intravenous administration, a continuous process involving dynamic adjustments of the treatment dose, can guide clinicians on drug use. However, the existing causal inference frameworks in longitudinal studies typically assume that time advances in discrete time steps.…

弱重叠下因果效应估计的去混杂得分与表示学习AI 解读

Overlap, also known as positivity, is a key condition for causal treatment effect estimation. Many popular estimators suffer from high variance and become brittle when features differ strongly across treatment groups. This is especially challenging in high dimensions: the curse of dimensionality can make overlap implausible. To address this, we propose a class of feature representations called deconfounding scores, which preserve both identification and the target of…

数字孪生反事实框架：模拟潜在结果的验证架构AI 解读

The fundamental problem of causal inference - that the counterfactual outcome for any individual is never observed - has shaped the entire methodology of the field. Every existing approach substitutes assumptions for missing data: ignorability, parallel trends, exclusion restrictions. None produces the counterfactual itself. This paper proposes the Digital Twin Counterfactual Framework (DTCF): rather than estimating the counterfactual statistically, we simulate it using a…

未测量混杂下因果直接效应的识别与估计AI 解读

Causal mediation analysis provides techniques for defining and estimating effects that may be endowed with mechanistic interpretations. With many scientific investigations seeking to address mechanistic questions, causal direct and indirect effects have garnered much attention. The natural direct and indirect effects, the most widely used among such causal mediation estimands, are limited in their practical utility due to stringent identification requirements. Accordingly,…

英国支付流的网络结构：经济相互依赖与实时衡量AI 解读

Network analysis of inter-industry payment flows reveals structural economic relationships invisible to traditional bilateral measurement approaches, with significant implications for real-time economic monitoring. Analysing 532,346 UK payment records (2017--2024) across 89 industry sectors, we demonstrate that graph-theoretic features which include centrality measures and clustering coefficients improve payment flow forecasting by 8.8 percentage points beyond traditional…

协变量平衡的加权堆叠双重差分AI 解读

This paper proposes Covariate-Balanced Weighted Stacked Difference-in-Differences (CBWSDID), a design-based extension of weighted stacked DID for settings in which untreated trends may be conditionally rather than unconditionally parallel. The estimator separates within-subexperiment design adjustment from across-subexperiment aggregation: matching or weighting improves treated-control comparability within each stacked subexperiment, while the corrective stacked weights of…

非线性动态网络模型的识别与推断AI 解读

We study identification and inference in nonlinear dynamic systems defined on unknown interaction networks. The system evolves through an unobserved dependence matrix governing cross-sectional shock propagation via a nonlinear operator. We show that the network structure is not generically identified, and that identification requires sufficient spectral heterogeneity. In particular, identification arises when the network induces non-exchangeable covariance patterns through…

非线性工具变量估计量的遗漏变量偏差量化AI 解读

We develop a framework for quantifying omitted variable bias (OVB) in nonlinear instrumental variable (IV) estimators, including the local average treatment effect (LATE), the LATE for the treated (LATT), and the partially linear IV model (PLIVM). Extending sensitivity analysis beyond linear settings, we derive bias decompositions, establish partial identification bounds, and construct OVB-adjusted confidence intervals. We estimate OVB bounds and conduct inference using…

含个体与时间效应的非线性面板模型稳健先验AI 解读

We develop likelihood-based bias reduction for nonlinear panel models with additive individual and time effects. In two-way panels, integrated-likelihood corrections are attractive but challenging because the required integration is high dimensional and standard Laplace approximations may fail when the parameter dimension grows with the sample size. We propose a target-centered full-exponential Laplace--cumulant expansion that exploits the sparse higher-order derivative…

含停药后恢复随访者的连续终点临床试验处理效应估计AI 解读

The estimand framework provides guidance on handling intercurrent events, such as treatment discontinuation, in the analysis of clinical trial responses. Under ICH E9(R1), the treatment policy (TP) strategy incorporates post-discontinuation data to reflect treatment effects in real-world practice. However, many existing approaches focus primarily on imputing missing endpoint values for lost-to-follow-up subjects and do not explicitly model completers, retrieved dropouts…

重尾齐次结构因果模型AI 解读

We consider causal discovery in structural causal models driven by heavy-tailed noise, where extremes carry important information about causal direction. We introduce the Heavy-Tailed Homogeneous Structural Causal Model (HT-HSCM), a unified framework that generalizes heavy-tailed linear and max-linear models. We demonstrate that causal tail coefficients identify the complete ancestral partial order of the underlying directed acyclic graph. We also formulate a recursive…

弱识别下的置信集：理论与实践AI 解读

We develop new methods for constructing confidence sets and intervals in linear instrumental variables (IV) models based on tests that remain valid under weak identification and under heteroskedastic, autocorrelated, or clustered errors. In practice, researchers typically recover such sets by grid search, a procedure that can miss parts of the confidence region, truncate unbounded sets, and deliver misleading inference. We replace grid inversion with exact and…

充分原因框架下的死亡截断AI 解读

The sufficient cause framework has been used for decades to improve our understanding of both basic and more complex causal concepts in epidemiology, such as mediation and interaction. Here, we make use of this framework to provide a description of truncation by death, in which the outcome of interest is undefined for individuals who die before the time of assessment at the end of follow-up. We explain the non-causal nature of the crude estimand that compares outcomes by…