论文检索

森林核平衡权重：由结局引导的因果推断特征AI 解读

While balancing covariates between groups is central for observational causal inference, selecting which features to balance remains a challenging problem. Kernel balancing is a promising approach that first estimates a kernel that captures similarity across units and then balances a (possibly low-dimensional) summary of that kernel, indirectly learning important features to balance. In this paper, we propose forest kernel balancing, which leverages the underappreciated fact…

处理状态缺失时，如何学习应该干预谁AI 解读

Policy learning methods are increasingly used to inform treatment allocation under budget constraints. Most proposed methods assume complete treatment data, yet applications frequently suffer from missingness that can bias estimates and lead to suboptimal policies. We address this gap by extending efficient estimators for average treatment effect (ATE) estimation to policy value and conditional average treatment effect (CATE) estimation under missing at random (MAR) and…

《非随机缺失下的矩阵补全及其在因果面板模型中的应用》讨论AI 解读

Choi and Yuan (2025) propose a novel approach to applying matrix completion to the problem of estimating causal effects in panel data. The key insight is that even in the presence of structured patterns of missing data -- i.e. selection into treatment -- matrix completion can be effective if the number of treated observations is small relative to the number of control observations. We applaud the authors for their insightful and interesting paper. We discuss this proposal…

基于条件线性规划的部分识别：估计与政策学习AI 解读

Many important quantities of interest are only partially identified from observable data: the data can limit them to a set of plausible values, but not uniquely determine them. This paper develops a unified framework for covariate-assisted estimation, inference, and decision making in partial identification problems where the parameter of interest satisfies a series of linear constraints, conditional on covariates. In such settings, bounds on the parameter can be written as…

自然语言的孤立因果效应AI 解读

As language technologies become widespread, it is important to understand how changes in language affect reader perceptions and behaviors. These relationships may be formalized as the isolated causal effect of some focal language-encoded intervention (e.g., factual inaccuracies) on an external outcome (e.g., readers' beliefs). In this paper, we introduce a formal estimation framework for isolated causal effects of language. We show that a core challenge of estimating…

具有选择性资格的纵向因果推断AI 解读

Dropout poses a significant challenge to causal inference in longitudinal studies with time-varying treatments. However, existing research does not simultaneously address dropout and time-varying treatments. We examine selective eligibility, an important yet overlooked source of non-ignorable dropout in such settings. This problem arises when a unit's prior treatment history influences its eligibility for subsequent treatments, a common scenario in medical and other…

利用多个结果变量改进合成控制方法AI 解读

When there are multiple outcome series of interest, Synthetic Control analyses typically proceed by estimating separate weights for each outcome. In this paper, we instead propose estimating a common set of weights across outcomes, by balancing either a vector of all outcomes or an index or average of them. Under a low-rank factor model, we show that these approaches lead to lower bias bounds than separate weights, and that averaging leads to further gains when the number of…

多阈值断点回归设计下的安全政策学习AI 解读

The regression discontinuity (RD) design is widely used for program evaluation with observational data. The primary focus of the existing literature has been the estimation of the local average treatment effect at the existing treatment cutoff. In contrast, we consider policy learning under the RD design. Because the treatment assignment mechanism is deterministic, learning better treatment cutoffs requires extrapolation. We develop a robust optimization approach to finding…

基于潜在获益的干预效应AI 解读

Optimal treatment rules are mappings from individual patient characteristics to tailored treatment assignments that maximize mean outcomes. In this work, we introduce a conditional potential benefit (CPB) metric that measures the expected improvement under an optimally chosen treatment compared to the status quo, within covariate strata. The potential benefit combines (i) the magnitude of the treatment effect, and (ii) the propensity for subjects to naturally select a…

面向人类偏好的语言模型优化是一个因果推断问题AI 解读

As large language models (LLMs) see greater use in academic and commercial settings, there is increasing interest in methods that allow language models to generate texts aligned with human preferences. In this paper, we present an initial exploration of language model optimization for human preferences from direct outcome datasets, where each sample consists of a text and an associated numerical outcome measuring the reader's response. We first propose that language model…

合成控制法中的时间聚合AI 解读

The synthetic control method (SCM) is a popular approach for estimating the impact of a treatment on a single unit with panel data. Two challenges arise with higher frequency data (e.g., monthly versus yearly): (1) achieving excellent pre-treatment fit is typically more challenging; and (2) overfitting to noise is more likely. Aggregating data over time can mitigate these problems but can also destroy important signal. In this paper, we bound the bias for SCM with…

Text-Transport：自然语言因果效应的跨域迁移AI 解读

As language technologies gain prominence in real-world settings, it is important to understand how changes to language affect reader perceptions. This can be formalized as the causal effect of varying a linguistic attribute (e.g., sentiment) on a reader's response to the text. In this paper, we introduce Text-Transport, a method for estimation of causal effects from natural language under any text distribution. Current approaches for valid causal effect estimation require…

平衡权重估计的可解释敏感性分析AI 解读

Assessing sensitivity to unmeasured confounding is an important step in observational studies, which typically estimate effects under the assumption that all confounders are measured. In this paper, we develop a sensitivity analysis framework for balancing weights estimators, an increasingly popular approach that solves an optimization problem to obtain weights that directly minimizes covariate imbalance. In particular, we adapt a sensitivity analysis framework using the…

重叠不足时用平衡权重估计已处理者的处理效应AI 解读

Inverse probability weights are commonly used in epidemiology to estimate causal effects in observational studies. Researchers can typically focus on either the average treatment effect or the average treatment effect on the treated with inverse probability weighting estimators. However, when overlap between the treated and control groups is poor, this can produce extreme weights that can result in biased estimates and large variances. One alternative to inverse probability…

因果推断中的协变量平衡AI 解读

The idea of covariate balance is at the core of causal inference. Inverse propensity weights play a central role because they are the unique set of weights that balance the covariate distributions of different treatment groups. We discuss two broad approaches to estimating these weights: the more traditional one, which fits a propensity score model and then uses the reciprocal of the estimated propensity score to construct weights, and the balancing approach, which estimates…

是个体构成还是所在环境？分解跨站点处理效应差异AI 解读

Multisite trials, in which treatment is randomized separately in multiple sites, offer a unique opportunity to disentangle treatment effect variation due to "compositional" differences in the distributions of unit-level features from variation due to "contextual" differences in site-level features. In particular, if we can re-weight (or "transport") each site to have a common distribution of unit-level covariates, the remaining effect variation captures contextual…