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以噪声对抗噪声：大量候选工具变量下的因果推断AI 解读

Instrumental variable methods provide useful tools for inferring causal effects in the presence of unmeasured confounding. To apply these methods with large-scale data sets, a major challenge is to find valid instruments from a possibly large candidate set. In practice, most of the candidate instruments are often not relevant for studying a particular exposure of interest. Moreover, not all relevant candidate instruments are valid as they may directly influence the outcome…

反事实斜率及其在社会分层研究中的应用AI 解读

This paper addresses two prominent theses in social stratification research, the great equalizer thesis and Mare's (1980) school transition thesis. Both theses describe the role of an intermediate educational transition in the association between socioeconomic status and an outcome variable. However, the descriptive regularities of the two theses may be driven by differential selection into the intermediate transition, which prevents the two theses from having substantive…

多暴露与多样本情形下检测和控制选择偏差的图工具AI 解读

Among recent developments in definitions and analysis of selection bias is the potential outcomes approach of Kenah (Epidemiology, 2023), which allows non-parametric analysis using single-world intervention graphs, linking selection of study participants to identification of causal effects. Mohan & Pearl (JASA, 2021) provide a framework for missing data via directed acyclic graphs augmented with nodes indicating missingness for each sometimes-missing variable, which allows…

随机实验中样本局部平均处理效应的两阶段推断AI 解读

In a given randomized experiment, individuals are often volunteers and can differ in important ways from a population of interest. It is thus of interest to focus on the sample at hand. This paper focuses on inference about the sample local average treatment effect (LATE) in randomized experiments with non-compliance. We present a two-stage procedure that provides asymptotically correct coverage rate of the sample LATE in randomized experiments. The procedure uses a…

利用相关工具变量集合预测具有多效性调控作用的 GWAS 位点因果基因AI 解读

Multivariate Mendelian randomization (MVMR) is a statistical technique that uses sets of genetic instruments to estimate the direct causal effects of multiple exposures on an outcome of interest. At genomic loci with pleiotropic gene regulatory effects, that is, loci where the same genetic variants are associated to multiple nearby genes, MVMR can potentially be used to predict candidate causal genes. However, consensus in the field dictates that the genetic instruments in…

跨研究工具变量估计的非参数复现AI 解读

Replicating causal estimates across different cohorts is crucial for increasing the integrity of epidemiological studies. However, strong assumptions regarding unmeasured confounding and effect modification often hinder this goal. By employing an instrumental variable (IV) approach and targeting the local average treatment effect (LATE), these assumptions can be relaxed to some degree; however, little work has addressed the replicability of IV estimates. In this paper, we…

误分类且不要求单调性时的二元感染后结局疫苗效力AI 解读

In order to meet regulatory approval, pharmaceutical companies often must demonstrate that new vaccines reduce the total risk of a post-infection outcome like transmission, symptomatic disease, severe illness, or death in randomized, placebo-controlled trials. Given that infection is a necessary precondition for a post-infection outcome, one can use principal stratification to partition the total causal effect of vaccination into two causal effects: vaccine efficacy against…

样本量为一时的随机化推断AI 解读

N-of-1 experiments, where a unit serves as its own control and treatment in different time windows, have been used in certain medical contexts for decades. However, due to effects that accumulate over long time windows and interventions that have complex evolution, a lack of robust inference tools has limited the widespread applicability of such N-of-1 designs. This work combines techniques from experiment design in causal inference and system identification from control…

衔接设计与分析：处理剂量匹配观察研究的随机化推断与敏感性分析AI 解读

Matching is a commonly used causal inference study design in observational studies. Through matching on measured confounders between different treatment groups, valid randomization inferences can be conducted under the no unmeasured confounding assumption, and sensitivity analysis can be further performed to assess sensitivity of randomization inference results to potential unmeasured confounding. However, for many common matching designs, there is still a lack of valid…

断点回归设计中因果推断子总体的选择AI 解读

The Brazil Bolsa Familia (BF) program is a conditional cash transfer program aimed to reduce short-term poverty by direct cash transfers and to fight long-term poverty by increasing human capital among poor Brazilian people. Eligibility for Bolsa Familia benefits depends on a cutoff rule, which classifies the BF study as a regression discontinuity (RD) design. Extracting causal information from RD studies is challenging. Following Li et al (2015) and Branson and Mealli…

交叉验证目标最大似然估计的表现AI 解读

Background: Advanced methods for causal inference, such as targeted maximum likelihood estimation (TMLE), require certain conditions for statistical inference. However, in situations where there is not differentiability due to data sparsity or near-positivity violations, the Donsker class condition is violated. In such situations, TMLE variance can suffer from inflation of the type I error and poor coverage, leading to conservative confidence intervals. Cross-validation of…

支持可推广推断的整群随机试验设计AI 解读

Background: When planning a cluster randomized trial, evaluators often have access to an enumerated cohort representing the target population of clusters. Practicalities of conducting the trial, such as the need to oversample clusters with certain characteristics to improve trial economy or to support inference about subgroups of clusters, may preclude simple random sampling from the cohort into the trial, and thus interfere with the goal of producing generalizable…

生存试验中治疗交叉分析的统一三状态模型框架AI 解读

We present a unified three-state model (TSM) framework for evaluating treatment effects in clinical trials in the presence of treatment crossover. Researchers have proposed diverse methodologies to estimate the treatment effect that would have hypothetically been observed if treatment crossover had not occurred. However, there is little work on understanding the connections between these different approaches from a statistical point of view. The proposed TSM framework…

可被数据否证模型的稳健贝叶斯方法AI 解读

We propose a robust Bayesian method for economic models that can be rejected by some data distributions. The econometrician starts with a refutable structural assumption which can be written as the intersection of several assumptions. To avoid the assumption refutable, the econometrician first takes a stance on which assumption $j$ will be relaxed and considers a function $m_j$ that measures the deviation from the assumption $j$. She then specifies a set of prior beliefs $Π_s$…

GPT 参加 SAT：追踪考试难度与学生数学表现变化AI 解读

Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) is crucial for college admissions but its effectiveness and relevance are increasingly questioned. This paper enhances Synthetic Control methods by introducing "Transformed Control", a novel method that employs Large Language Models (LLMs) powered by Artificial Intelligence to generate control groups. We utilize OpenAI's API to generate a control group where GPT-4, or ChatGPT, takes multiple SATs annually from 2008 to 2023. This control group…

数据组合下平均处理效应估计的比较分析AI 解读

There is growing interest in exploring causal effects in target populations via data combination. However, most approaches are tailored to specific settings and lack comprehensive comparative analyses. In this article, we focus on a typical scenario involving a source dataset and a target dataset. We first design six settings under covariate shift and conduct a comparative analysis by deriving the semiparametric efficiency bounds for the ATE in the target population. We then…

反事实与合成控制：利用工具化主成分分析进行因果推断AI 解读

In this paper, we propose a novel method for causal inference within the framework of counterfactual and synthetic control. Matching forward the generalized synthetic control method, our instrumented principal component analysis method instruments factor loadings with predictive covariates rather than including them as regressors. These instrumented factor loadings exhibit time-varying dynamics, offering a better economic interpretation. Covariates are instrumented through a…

利用替代指标对处理效应进行群序贯检验AI 解读

The identification of surrogate markers is motivated by their potential to make decisions sooner about a treatment effect. However, few methods have been developed to actually use a surrogate marker to test for a treatment effect in a future study. Most existing methods consider combining surrogate marker and primary outcome information to test for a treatment effect, rely on fully parametric methods where strict parametric assumptions are made about the relationship between…

有序结果下因果归因概率的界限AI 解读

The probability of causation (PC) is often used in liability assessments. In a legal context, for example, where a patient suffered the side effect after taking a medication and sued the pharmaceutical company as a result, the value of the PC can help assess the likelihood that the side effect was caused by the medication, in other words, how likely it is that the patient will win the case. Beyond the issue of legal disputes, the PC plays an equally large role when one wants…

连接多个潜在世界：因果部分识别的多边际最优传输方法AI 解读

Under the prevalent potential outcome model in causal inference, each unit is associated with multiple potential outcomes but at most one of which is observed, leading to many causal quantities being only partially identified. The inherent missing data issue echoes the multi-marginal optimal transport (MOT) problem, where marginal distributions are known, but how the marginals couple to form the joint distribution is unavailable. In this paper, we cast the causal partial…

处理变量含噪且无辅助信息时的可识别因果推断AI 解读

In some causal inference scenarios, the treatment variable is measured inaccurately, for instance in epidemiology or econometrics. Failure to correct for the effect of this measurement error can lead to biased causal effect estimates. Previous research has not studied methods that address this issue from a causal viewpoint while allowing for complex nonlinear dependencies and without assuming access to side information. For such a scenario, this study proposes a model that…

主分层间因果中介分析的识别与多重稳健估计AI 解读

We consider assessing causal mediation in the presence of a post-treatment event (examples include noncompliance, a clinical event, or death). We identify natural mediation effects for the entire study population and for each principal stratum characterized by the joint potential values of the post-treatment event. We derive the efficient influence function for each mediation estimand, which motivates a set of multiply robust estimators for inference. The multiply robust…

如何用模型方法实现阶梯楔形试验的模型稳健推断？AI 解读

A stepped wedge design is a unidirectional crossover design where clusters are randomized to distinct treatment sequences. While model-based analysis of stepped wedge designs is standard practice to evaluate treatment effects accounting for clustering and adjusting for covariates, their properties under misspecification have not been systematically explored. In this article, we focus on model-based methods, including linear mixed models and generalized estimating equations…

大量弱工具变量下的第一阶段 F 检验AI 解读

A widely adopted approach for detecting weak instruments is to use the first-stage $F$ statistic. While this method was developed with a fixed number of instruments, its performance with many instruments remains insufficiently explored. We show that the first-stage $F$ test exhibits distorted sizes for detecting many weak instruments, regardless of the choice of pretested estimators or Wald tests. These distortions occur due to the inadequate approximation using classical…