每日简报

网络干扰下分位数效应的一致推断AI 解读

This paper studies quantile treatment and spillover effects in network experiments. Average spillover effects reveal how treating a unit's neighbors affects its outcome on average, but mask the heterogeneity of these effects across the outcome distribution. We define structural quantile effects that compare outcome quantiles between exposure states, characterizing how own treatment and exposure to treated neighbors affect different parts of the outcome distribution. Building…

动态离散选择与逆强化学习：从人类行为推断偏好和信念AI 解读

This article surveys two deeply connected literatures that approach the same fundamental problem from different disciplinary traditions: dynamic discrete choice (DDC) in structural econometrics and inverse reinforcement learning (IRL) in machine learning. Both seek to infer the preferences of decision makers from observed sequential behavior, assuming that individuals act to maximize an expected reward function within a dynamic, uncertain environment formalized as a Markov…

内生选择与溢出：政策相关因果效应的贝叶斯推断AI 解读

This paper develops a new econometric framework to identify and estimate policy-relevant causal effects in contexts with endogenous selection into treatment and spillovers within single large networks or spatial settings. Conventional causal inference methods relying on either unconfoundedness or no-interference assumptions are generally inadequate in these scenarios. We introduce a Spillover Roy model that jointly models endogenous treatment selection and potential outcomes…

高维网络数据的统计推断AI 解读

We develop a novel method of inference for network-dependent high-dimensional random vectors. Dependence is characterized via a functional dependence measure based on graph distance, allowing the approximation theory to capture the interaction between the decay of dependence and the growth of network neighborhoods. We establish Gaussian approximation results for the maximum norm under finite-moment and sub-Weibull conditions, providing explicit conditions under which the…

潜在结果有界时的最优实验设计与估计AI 解读

I study the optimal design and analysis of randomized experiments for estimating finite-population average treatment effects when potential outcomes are known to be bounded, as with binary outcomes. Among all assignment mechanisms and a broad class of affine estimators, worst-case mean-squared error (MSE) is minimized by independent random assignment and an unconventional regression of the support-midpoint-centered outcome on the recentered treatment, with no intercept. This…

秩—秩回归的统计推断AI 解读

The slope coefficient in a rank-rank regression is a popular measure of intergenerational mobility. In this article, we first show that commonly used inference methods for this slope parameter are invalid. Second, when the underlying distribution is not continuous, the OLS estimator and its distribution may be sensitive to how ties in the ranks are handled. Motivated by these findings we derive the asymptotic distribution of the OLS estimator and provide valid inference…

利用代理变量对因果效应进行部分识别AI 解读

Proximal causal inference is a framework for evaluating the causal effects in the presence of unmeasured confounding. For point identification, it leverages a pair of proxy variables to identify a bridge function that matches the dependence of potential outcomes or treatment variables on the hidden factors to corresponding functions of observed proxies. Unique identification requires that proxies are sufficiently relevant for hidden factors, a requirement that has previously…

甜甜圈断点回归设计AI 解读

Donut regression discontinuity (RD) designs exclude observations in a neighborhood around the cutoff. They are widely used in empirical work to address concerns about manipulation, sorting, or measurement error in the running variable. Despite their popularity, donut RD estimators are typically implemented heuristically, with limited formal guidance and unclear implications for bias, variance, and statistical inference. This paper provides a theoretical analysis of donut RD…

基于实验设计的置信序列：面板实验中的风险缓解AI 解读

Randomized experiments have become the standard method for companies to evaluate the performance of new products or services. Beyond aiding managerial decision-making, experiments mitigate risk by limiting the proportion of customers exposed to innovations. Since many experiments are conducted sequentially over time, an emerging strategy to further derisk the process is to allow managers to ``peek'' at the results as new data become available and stop the test if the results…

线性非高斯结构方程模型的拟合优度检验AI 解读

The field of causal discovery develops model selection methods to infer cause-effect relations among a set of random variables. For this purpose, different modelling assumptions have been proposed to render cause-effect relations identifiable. One prominent assumption is that the joint distribution of the observed variables follows a linear non-Gaussian structural equation model. In this paper, we develop novel goodness-of-fit tests that assess the validity of this…

非线性分箱散点图方法AI 解读

Binscatters are a powerful tool for empirical work in the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Available tools rely on least squares estimation of the conditional mean. We introduce novel binscatter methods based on nonlinear, possibly nonsmooth M-estimation, covering generalized linear, robust, and quantile regression models. We provide theoretical results and practical tools, including optimal bin selection, confidence bands, and statistical tests regarding…

有界异质性下的处理效应估计AI 解读

Specifications that impose constant treatment effects are common and can be biased under heterogeneity, whereas fully flexible alternatives can be imprecise or infeasible. Under a bound on the target-weighted variance of treatment effects, this paper proposes a generalized ridge estimator, $\texttt{regulaTE}$, that yields heterogeneity-aware confidence intervals (CIs). The ridge penalty is chosen to minimize the heterogeneity-aware CI length in a homoskedastic Gaussian…

单人试验的因果推断AI 解读

The aim of personalized medicine is to tailor treatment decisions to individuals' characteristics. N-of-1 trials are within-person crossover trials that hold the promise of targeting individual-specific effects. While the idea behind N-of-1 trials might seem simple, analyzing and interpreting N-of-1 trials is not straightforward. Here we ground N-of-1 trials in a formal causal inference framework and formalize intuitive claims from the N-of-1 trials literature. We focus on…

用离散选择模型逼近选择数据AI 解读

We obtain a necessary and sufficient condition under which random-coefficient discrete choice models, such as mixed-logit models, are rich enough to approximate any nonparametric random utility models arbitrarily well across choice sets. The condition turns out to be the affine-independence of the set of characteristic vectors. When the condition fails, resulting in some random utility models that cannot be closely approximated, we identify preferences and substitution…

不可观测因素的效应检验：婚姻前景是否影响大学专业选择？AI 解读

This paper develops an econometric test for whether an unobservable factor jointly influences a choice among multiple alternatives and a subsequent binary outcome. Because only transformed versions of the choice model's unobservables are identified, we combine a copula-based joint model with results on the covariance between ordered and unordered normal variables to recover the covariance between structural shocks, yielding a simulation-based test for a common unobserved…

利用生成式人工智能对非结构化数据开展因果推断AI 解读

We introduce GenAI-Powered Inference (GPI), a statistical framework for both causal and predictive inference using unstructured data, including text and images. GPI leverages open-source Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) models---such as large language models and diffusion models---not only to generate unstructured data at scale but also to extract low-dimensional representations that are guaranteed to capture their underlying structure. Applying machine learning to…

潜在内生性下工具变量强化学习的渐近理论AI 解读

In the standard data analysis framework, data is collected (once and for all), and then data analysis is carried out. However, with the advancement of digital technology, decision-makers constantly analyze past data and generate new data through their decisions. We model this as a Markov decision process and show that the dynamic interaction between data generation and data analysis leads to a new type of bias -- reinforcement bias -- that exacerbates the endogeneity problem…

部分识别因果效应的模型无关协变量辅助推断AI 解读

Many causal estimands are only partially identifiable since they depend on the unobservable joint distribution between potential outcomes. Stratification on pretreatment covariates can yield sharper bounds; however, unless the covariates are discrete with relatively small support, this approach typically requires binning covariates or estimating the conditional distributions of potential outcomes given the covariates. Binning can result in substantial efficiency loss and…

基于约束的因果模型选择：一种审慎方法AI 解读

We study the data-driven selection of causal graphical models using constraint-based algorithms, which determine the existence or non-existence of edges (causal connections) in a graph based on testing a series of conditional independence hypotheses. In settings where the ultimate scientific goal is to use the selected graph to inform estimation of some causal effect of interest (e.g., by selecting a valid and sufficient set of adjustment variables), we argue that a…

精细分层再随机化设计AI 解读

Finely stratified randomization makes unadjusted treatment effect estimation efficient when matches are tight. However, match quality deteriorates rapidly as covariate dimension increases, attenuating the gains from stratification. Motivated by this problem, we study designs that finely stratify on a few important covariates, then rerandomize within matched groups to balance the remainder. We derive the asymptotic distribution for GMM estimators of general causal parameters…

有限总体中的单调性检验AI 解读

We consider the extent to which we can learn from a completely randomized experiment whether all individuals have treatment effects that are weakly of the same sign, a condition we call monotonicity. From a classical sampling perspective, it is well-known that monotonicity is not falsifiable. We show that from the design-based perspective---in which the potential outcomes are fixed and only treatment assignment is stochastic---that the distribution of treatment effects in…

条件函数图模型中识别差异网络的近邻选择方法AI 解读

Estimating how different brain regions communicate with each other using EEG data is valuable both for medical research and clinical diagnosis. This involves quantifying the statistical dependencies among the activities of different brain areas, captured by the time-varying electric field recorded by scalp sensors. These dependencies can vary within and across individuals also in relationship with external factors such as age, mental state, or disease severity. Motivated by…

Probit 回归中的强对数凹性AI 解读

We show that strong log-concavity emerges in probit regression likelihoods without ridge penalization (i.e. Gaussian priors), unlike for the logistic case. Specifically, we provide: (a) a non-asymptotic characterization of strong log-concavity for fixed designs, similar to that for the existence of the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) and (b) an asymptotic analysis for random designs, in the proportional regime when the sample size $n$ and the number of covariates $d$ grow…

特征向量空间滤波核范数矩阵补全及其空气质量应用AI 解读

Reliable reconstruction of missing observations in environmental panel datasets is essential for accurate exposure assessment and policy analysis. Traditional nuclear norm matrix completion methods effectively impute missing entries in low-rank matrices, yet often overlook the spatial dependence inherent to air quality processes. This paper introduces the Eigenvector Spatial Filters Nuclear Norm Matrix Completion (ESFNNMC) method, an extension of nuclear norm fixed-effects…