Balancing Flexibility and Interpretability: A Conditional Linear Model Estimation via Random Forest
平衡灵活性与可解释性:基于随机森林的条件线性模型估计
Traditional parametric econometric models often rely on rigid functional forms, while nonparametric techniques, despite their flexibility, frequently lack interpretability. This paper proposes a parsimonious alternative by modeling the outcome $Y$ as a linear function of a vector of variables of interest $\boldsymbol{X}$, conditional on additional covariates $\boldsymbol{Z}$. Specifically, the conditional expectation is expressed as $\mathbb{E}[Y|\boldsymbol{X},\boldsymbol{Z}]=\boldsymbol{X}^{T}\boldsymbolβ(\boldsymbol{Z})$…