每日简报

挖掘因果关系：人工智能辅助搜索工具变量AI 解读

The instrumental variables (IVs) method is a leading empirical strategy for causal inference. Finding IVs is a heuristic and creative process, and justifying their validity---especially exclusion restrictions---is largely rhetorical. We propose using large language models (LLMs) to search for new IVs through narratives and counterfactual reasoning, similar to how a human researcher would. The stark difference, however, is that LLMs can dramatically accelerate this process…

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…

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…

采用污染正态分布的 Heckman 选择模型AI 解读

The Heckman selection model is one of the most well-renounced econometric models in the analysis of data with sample selection. This model is designed to rectify sample selection biases based on the assumption of bivariate normal error terms. However, real data diverge from this assumption in the presence of heavy tails and/or atypical observations. Recently, this assumption has been relaxed via a more flexible Student's t-distribution, which has appealing statistical…

通过条件独立关系以多项式延迟检验含隐变量的因果模型AI 解读

Testing a hypothesized causal model against observational data is a key prerequisite for many causal inference tasks. A natural approach is to test whether the conditional independence relations (CIs) assumed in the model hold in the data. While a model can assume exponentially many CIs (with respect to the number of variables), testing all of them is both impractical and unnecessary. Causal graphs, which encode these CIs in polynomial space, give rise to local Markov…

随机实验中的 Neyman 式推断AI 解读

In his seminal 1923 work, Neyman studied the variance estimation problem for the difference-in-means estimator of the average treatment effect in completely randomized experiments. He proposed a variance estimator that is conservative in general and unbiased under homogeneous treatment effects. While widely used under complete randomization, there is no unique or natural way to extend this estimator to more complex designs. To this end, we show that Neyman's estimator can be…

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…

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…

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…

连续处理匹配观察研究的偏差缓解：卡尺非二分匹配与偏差修正推断AI 解读

In matched observational studies with continuous treatments, individuals with different treatment doses but the same or similar covariate values are paired for causal inference. While inexact covariate matching (i.e., covariate imbalance after matching) is common in practice, previous matched studies with continuous treatments have often overlooked this issue as long as post-matching covariate balance meets certain criteria. Through re-analyzing a matched observational study…

聚类干扰下的非参数因果生存分析AI 解读

Inferring treatment effects on a survival time outcome based on data from an observational study is challenging due to the presence of censoring and possible confounding. An additional challenge occurs when a unit's treatment affects the outcome of other units, i.e., there is interference. In some settings, units may be grouped into clusters such that it is reasonable to assume interference only occurs within clusters, i.e., there is clustered interference. In this paper,…

治疗启动时间的增量因果效应AI 解读

We consider time to treatment initialization. This can commonly occur in preventive medicine, such as disease screening and vaccination; it can also occur with non-fatal health conditions such as HIV infection without the onset of AIDS; or in tech industry where items wait to be reviewed manually as abusive or not, etc. While traditional causal inference focused on `when to treat' and its effects, including their possible dependence on subject characteristics, we consider…

未来干预因果效应的预测：混杂与可迁移性问题AI 解读

Recent developments in causal inference allow us to transport a causal effect of a time-fixed treatment from a randomized trial to a target population across space but within the same time frame. In contrast to transportability across space, transporting causal effects across time or forecasting causal effects of future interventions is more challenging due to time-varying confounders and time-varying effect modifiers. In this article, we seek to formally clarify the causal…

Softmax 混合模型中的 EM 算法与矩估计AI 解读

Softmax Mixture Models (SMMs) are discrete $K$-component mixture models for the probabilities of selecting one of $p$ candidate feature vectors $X_1,\ldots,X_p\in\mathbb{R}^L$ in heterogeneous populations and are widely used in econometrics and scientific applications. Related softmax mixture mechanisms also appear in modern LLM architectures. We provide a theoretical and methodological study of SMMs, focusing on the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm and the Method of…

债券风险溢价可预测性的稳健分位数检验AI 解读

Different from existing literature on testing the macro-spanning hypothesis of bond risk premia, which only considers mean regressions, this paper investigates whether the yield curve represented by CP factor (Cochrane and Piazzesi, 2005) contains all available information about future bond returns in a predictive quantile regression with many other macroeconomic variables. In this study, we introduce the Trend in Debt Holding (TDH) as a novel predictor, testing it alongside…

连续暴露的增量效应AI 解读

Causal inference problems often involve continuous treatments, such as dose, duration, or frequency. However, identifying and estimating standard dose-response estimands requires that everyone has some chance of receiving any level of the exposure (i.e., positivity). To avoid this assumption, we consider stochastic interventions based on exponentially tilting the treatment distribution by some parameter $δ$ (an incremental effect); this increases or decreases the likelihood…

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…

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…

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…

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 $Π_s$…

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…

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…

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…

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…