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交叉平衡：利用数据设计并高效分析观察研究AI 解读

Causal inference starts with a simple idea: compare groups that differ by treatment, not much else. Traditionally, similar groups are constructed using only observed covariates; however, it remains a long-standing challenge to incorporate available outcome data into the study design while preserving valid inference. In this paper, we study the general problem of covariate adjustment, effect estimation, and statistical inference when balancing features are constructed or…

通过张量补全推断序贯处理的因果效应AI 解读

Marginal Structural Models (MSMs) are popular for causal inference of sequential treatments in longitudinal observational studies, which however are sensitive to model misspecification. To achieve flexible modeling, we envision the potential outcomes to form a three-dimensional tensor indexed by subject, time, and treatment regime and propose a tensorized history-restricted MSM (HRMSM). The semi-parametric tensor factor model allows us to leverage the underlying low-rank…

稳健贝叶斯因果推断AI 解读

This paper develops a Bayesian framework for robust causal inference from longitudinal observational data. Many contemporary methods rely on structural assumptions, such as factor models, to adjust for unobserved confounding, but they can lead to biased causal estimands when mis-specified. We focus on directly estimating time--unit--specific causal effects and use generalised Bayesian inference to quantify model mis-specification and adjust for it, while retaining…

金融事件研究中的因果推断AI 解读

Financial event studies, ubiquitous in finance research, typically use linear factor models with known factors to estimate abnormal returns and identify causal effects of information events. This paper demonstrates that when factor models are misspecified -- an almost certain reality -- traditional event study estimators produce inconsistent estimates of treatment effects. The bias is particularly severe during volatile periods, over long horizons, and when event timing…

利用疫苗无关感染去偏随时间变化的风险率型疫苗效应AI 解读

Understanding how vaccine effectiveness (VE) changes over time can provide evidence-based guidance for public health decision making. While commonly reported by practitioners, time-varying VE estimates obtained using Cox regression are vul- nerable to hidden biases. To address these limitations, we describe how to leverage vaccine-irrelevant infections to identify hazard-based, time-varying VE in the pres- ence of unmeasured confounding and selection bias. We articulate…

连续处理因果推断中的个体化预测带AI 解读

Individualized treatments are crucial for optimal decision making and treatment allocation, specifically in personalized medicine based on the estimation of an individual's dose-response curve across a continuum of treatment levels, e.g., drug dosage. Current works focus on conditional mean and median estimates, which are useful but do not provide the full picture. We propose viewing causal inference with a continuous treatment as a covariate shift. This allows us to…

多协变量完全随机实验中的回归调整AI 解读

This paper investigates estimation and inference for average treatment effects in completely randomized experiments when researchers observe potentially many covariates. Within Neyman's (1923) design-based framework, allowing the number of covariates to grow more slowly than the sample size, we demonstrate that a cross-fitted regression adjustment estimator--adapted from Aronow and Middleton (2013)--exhibits more favorable asymptotic properties than existing alternatives,…

广义单调性对平均处理效应的识别能力AI 解读

In the context of a binary outcome, treatment, and instrument, Balke and Pearl (1993, 1997) es- tablish that the monotonicity condition of Imbens and Angrist (1994) has no identifying power beyond instrument exogeneity for average potential outcomes and average treatment effects in the sense that adding it to instrument exogeneity does not decrease the identified sets for those parameters whenever those restrictions are consistent with the distribution of the observable…

时变面板数据模型中潜在分组结构的估计AI 解读

We consider panel data models where coefficients change smoothly over time and follow a latent group structure, being homogeneous within but heterogeneous across groups. To jointly estimate the group membership and group-specific coefficient trajectories, we propose FUSE-TIME, a pairwise adaptive group fused-Lasso estimator combined with polynomial spline sieves. We establish consistency, derive the asymptotic distributions of the penalized sieve estimator and its…

受高阶影响函数启发的随机实验协变量调整AI 解读

Higher-Order Influence Functions (HOIF), developed in a series of papers over the past twenty years, are a fundamental theoretical device for constructing rate-optimal causal-effect estimators from observational studies. However, the value of HOIF for analyzing well-conducted randomized controlled trials (RCT) has not been explicitly explored. In the recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration and European Medicines Agency guidelines on the practice of covariate adjustment in…

合成生存控制：面向事件发生时间反事实的合成控制扩展AI 解读

Estimating causal effects on time-to-event outcomes from observational data is particularly challenging due to censoring, limited sample sizes, and non-random treatment assignment. The need for answering such "when-if" questions--how the timing of an event would change under a specified intervention--commonly arises in real-world settings with heterogeneous treatment adoption and confounding. To address these challenges, we propose Synthetic Survival Control (SSC) to…

统一空间混杂处理方法的工具变量框架AI 解读

Studies investigating the causal effects of spatially varying exposures on outcomes often rely on observational and spatially indexed data. A prevalent challenge is unmeasured spatial confounding, where an unobserved spatially varying variable affects both exposure and outcome, leading to biased estimates and invalid confidence intervals. There is a very large literature on spatial statistics that attempts to address unmeasured spatial confounding bias; most of this…

极端分类群偏差下的生态网络连接预测AI 解读

Ecological networks offer powerful insights into community function, but without first characterizing these networks accurately, our ability to detect and interpret changes under environmental stress is limited. We develop an approach to reduce bias in link prediction in the common scenario in which data are derived from studies focused on a small number of species. Our Extended Covariate-Informed Link Prediction (COIL+) framework employs a latent factor model that flexibly…

均衡存在与唯一性条件下同质商品市场的行为参数估计：对数线性模型AI 解读

We propose a constrained generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator with some equilibrium uniqueness conditions for estimating the conduct parameter in a log-linear model with homogeneous goods markets. Monte Carlo simulations demonstrate that merely imposing parameter restrictions leads to not just inaccurate estimations but also some numerical issues, and adding the equilibrium uniqueness conditions resolves them. We also suggest a formulation of the GMM estimation to…

利用机器学习分解不平等并处理共同支撑问题AI 解读

The Kitagawa-Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition splits the difference in means between two groups into an explained part, due to observable factors, and an unexplained part. In this paper, we reformulate this framework using potential outcomes, highlighting the critical role of the reference outcome. To address limitations like common support and model misspecification, we extend Neumark's (1988) weighted reference approach with a doubly robust estimator. Using Neyman…

含固定效应的非线性网络数据模型的刀切法偏差校正AI 解读

I introduce a new method for bias correction of dyadic models with agent-specific fixed effects, including the dyadic link formation model with homophily and degree heterogeneity. The proposed approach uses a jackknife procedure to deal with the incidental parameters problem. The method can be applied to both directed and undirected networks, allows for non-binary outcome variables, and can be used to bias correct estimates of average effects and counterfactual outcomes. I…

通过神经对抗不变性学习从异质环境中探寻因果关系AI 解读

Pursuing causality from data is a fundamental problem in scientific discovery, treatment intervention, and transfer learning. This paper introduces a novel algorithmic method for addressing nonparametric invariance and causality learning in regression models across multiple environments, where the joint distribution of response variables and covariates varies, but the conditional expectations of outcome given an unknown set of quasi-causal variables are invariant. The…

老年人为何储蓄？利用健康冲击揭示遗赠动机AI 解读

We revisit the saving behavior of elderly singles using an adversarial structural estimation framework by Kaji, Manresa and Pouliot (2023). The method bridges the simulated method of moments (SMM) and maximum-likelihood estimation by embedding a flexible discriminator, implemented as a neural network, that adaptively selects the most informative features of the data. Applying this approach to the model of De Nardi, French, and Jones (2010) with AHEAD data, we show that…

结合陈述偏好与显示偏好AI 解读

Can stated preferences inform counterfactual analyses of actual choice? This research proposes a novel approach to researchers who have access to both stated choices in hypothetical scenarios and actual choices, matched or unmatched. The key idea is to use stated choices to identify the distribution of individual unobserved heterogeneity. If this unobserved heterogeneity is the source of endogeneity, the researcher can correct for its influence in a demand function…

多变量样本选择模型中的因果推断与双重机器学习AI 解读

We propose plug-in (PI) and double machine learning (DML) estimators of average treatment effect (ATE), average treatment effect on the treated (ATET) and local average treatment effect (LATE) in the multivariate sample selection model with ordinal selection equations. Our DML estimators are doubly-robust and based on the efficient influence functions. Finite sample properties of the proposed estimators are studied and compared on simulated data. Specifically, the results of…

空间随机化设计如何改进政策评估AI 解读

This article studies the benefits of using spatially randomized experimental designs which partition the experimental area into distinct, non-overlapping units with treatments assigned randomly. Such designs offer improved policy evaluation in online experiments by providing more precise policy value estimators and more effective A/B testing algorithms than traditional global designs, which apply the same treatment across all units simultaneously. We examine both parametric…

动态面板门槛模型的自助推断AI 解读

This paper develops valid bootstrap inference methods for the dynamic short panel threshold regression. We show that the standard nonparametric bootstrap is inconsistent for the first-differenced generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. The inconsistency arises from an $n^{1/4}$-consistent non-normal asymptotic distribution of the threshold estimator when the true parameter lies in the continuity region of the parameter space, which stems from the rank deficiency of…

高度相关暴露下多变量孟德尔随机化的分组识别与变量选择AI 解读

Multivariable Mendelian Randomization (MVMR) estimates the direct causal effects of multiple risk factors on an outcome using genetic variants as instruments. The growing availability of summary-level genetic data has created opportunities to apply MVMR in high-dimensional settings with many strongly correlated candidate risk factors. However, existing methods face three major limitations: weak instrument bias, limited interpretability, and the absence of valid…

允许因果循环与潜在混杂的贝叶斯因果发现AI 解读

Learning causality from observational data has received increasing interest across various scientific fields. However, most existing methods assume the absence of latent confounders and restrict the underlying causal graph to be acyclic, assumptions that are often violated in many real-world applications. In this paper, we address these challenges by proposing a novel framework for causal discovery that accommodates both cycles and latent confounders. By leveraging the…