每日简报

静态面板数据估计量的动态偏差AI 解读

This paper identifies an important bias - termed dynamic bias - in fixed effects panel estimators that arises when dynamic feedback is ignored in the estimating equation. Dynamic feedback occurs if past outcomes impact current outcomes, a feature of many settings ranging from economic growth to agricultural and labor markets. When estimating equations omit past outcomes, dynamic bias can lead to significantly inaccurate treatment effect estimates, even with randomly assigned…

联邦因果推断：超越元分析的多研究平均处理效应估计AI 解读

We study Federated Causal Inference, an approach to estimate treatment effects from decentralized data across centers. We compare three classes of Average Treatment Effect (ATE) estimators derived from the Plug-in G-Formula, ranging from simple meta-analysis to one-shot and multi-shot federated learning, the latter leveraging the full data to learn the outcome model (albeit requiring more communication). Focusing on Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs), we derive the…

含共同因子的动态时空与网络 ARCH 模型AI 解读

We introduce a dynamic spatiotemporal volatility model that extends traditional approaches by incorporating spatial, temporal, and spatiotemporal spillover effects, along with volatility-specific observed and latent factors. The model offers a more general network interpretation, making it applicable for studying various types of network spillovers. The primary innovation lies in incorporating volatility-specific latent factors into the dynamic spatiotemporal volatility…

事件研究剖析：假想实验、精确分解与权重诊断AI 解读

In recent decades, event studies have emerged as a central methodology in health and social research for evaluating the causal effects of staggered interventions. In this paper, we analyze event studies from experimental design principles for observational studies, with a focus on information borrowing across measurements. We develop robust weighting estimators that increasingly use more information across units and time periods, justified by increasingly stronger…

线性动态面板模型中的异质性处理效应AI 解读

We study the identification of heterogeneous, intertemporal treatment effects (TE) when potential outcomes depend on past treatments. First, applying a dynamic panel data model to observed outcomes, we show that an instrumental variable (IV) version of the estimand in Arellano and Bond (1991) recovers a non-convex (negatively weighted) aggregate of TE plus non-vanishing trends. We then provide conditions on sequential exchangeability (SE) of treatment and on TE heterogeneity…

条件矩等式模型的半参数贝叶斯推断AI 解读

I propose a semiparametric Bayesian inference framework for conditional moment equalities. The core idea is that these models deterministically map a conditional distribution of data to a structural parameter via the restriction that a conditional expectation equals zero. Consequently, a posterior for the conditional distribution leads to a posterior for the structural parameter by minimizing the distance of the conditional moments to zero. The method has similar flexibility…

不可观测因素的效应检验：婚姻前景是否影响大学专业选择？AI 解读

This paper develops an econometric test for whether an unobservable factor jointly influences a choice among multiple alternatives and a subsequent binary outcome. Because only transformed versions of the choice model's unobservables are identified, we combine a copula-based joint model with results on the covariance between ordered and unordered normal variables to recover the covariance between structural shocks, yielding a simulation-based test for a common unobserved…

异质性处理效应估计中的缺失协变量问题AI 解读

Many applications of causal inference require using treatment effects estimated on a study population to make decisions in a separate target population. We consider the challenging setting where there are covariates that are observed in the target population that were not seen in the original study. Our goal is to estimate the tightest possible bounds on heterogeneous treatment effects conditioned on such newly observed covariates. We introduce a novel partial identification…

最大得分问题的贝叶斯视角AI 解读

This paper presents a Bayesian inference framework for a linear index threshold-crossing binary choice model that satisfies a median independence restriction. The key idea is that the model is observationally equivalent to a probit model with nonparametric heteroskedasticity. Consequently, Gibbs sampling techniques from Albert and Chib (1993) and Chib and Greenberg (2013) lead to a computationally attractive Bayesian inference procedure in which a Gaussian process forms a…

新型处理效应估计模型的消融研究AI 解读

Ablation studies are essential for understanding the contribution of individual components within complex models, yet their application in nonparametric treatment effect estimation remains limited. This paper emphasizes the importance of ablation studies by examining the Bayesian Causal Forest (BCF) model, particularly the inclusion of the estimated propensity score $\hatπ(x_i)$ intended to mitigate regularization-induced confounding (RIC). Through a partial ablation study…

无需显式雅可比矩阵的有效伪似然算法AI 解读

This study proposes a simple procedure to compute Efficient Pseudo Likelihood (EPL) estimator proposed by Dearing and Blevins (2024) for estimating dynamic discrete games, without computing Jacobians of equilibrium constraints. EPL estimator is efficient, convergent, and computationally fast. However, the original algorithm requires deriving and coding the Jacobians, which are cumbersome and prone to coding mistakes especially when considering complicated models. The current…

利用干预样本高效开展因果图的贝叶斯学习AI 解读

Causal discovery is a fundamental problem with applications spanning various areas in science and engineering. It is well understood that solely using observational data, one can only orient the causal graph up to its Markov equivalence class, necessitating interventional data to learn the complete causal graph. Most works in the literature design causal discovery policies with perfect interventions, i.e., they have access to infinite interventional samples. This study…

分布鲁棒的工具变量估计AI 解读

Instrumental variables (IV) estimation is a fundamental method in econometrics and statistics for estimating causal effects in the presence of unobserved confounding. However, challenges such as untestable model assumptions and poor finite sample properties have undermined its reliability in practice. Viewing common issues in IV estimation as distributional uncertainties, we propose DRIVE, a distributionally robust IV estimation method. We show that DRIVE minimizes a square…

未观测混杂下事件时间数据的二元变换模型：重访伊利诺伊再就业奖励实验AI 解读

Motivated by empirical studies investigating treatment effects in survival analysis, we propose a bivariate transformation model to quantify the impact of a binary treatment on a time-to-event outcome. The model equations are connected through a bivariate Gaussian distribution, with the dependence parameter capturing unobserved confounding, and are specified as functions of additive predictors to flexibly account for the impacts of observed confounders. Moreover, the…

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…

横截面阶梯楔形整群随机试验中的中介分析AI 解读

Mediation analysis has been comprehensively studied for independent data but relatively little work has been done for correlated data, especially for the increasingly adopted stepped wedge cluster randomized trials (SW-CRTs). Motivated by challenges in underlying the effect mechanisms in pragmatic and implementation science clinical trials, we develop new methods for mediation analysis in SW-CRTs. Specifically, based on a linear and generalized linear mixed models, we…

高维选择性标签模型的统计推断AI 解读

A class of simultaneous equation models arise in the many domains where observed binary outcomes are themselves a consequence of the existing choices of of one of the agents in the model. These models are gaining increasing interest in the computer science and machine learning literatures where they refer the potentially endogenous sample selection as the {\em selective labels} problem. Empirical settings for such models arise in fields as diverse as criminal justice, health…

重新审视同质产品市场中行为参数的识别AI 解读

We revisit the identification of the conduct parameter in homogeneous goods markets. Lau (1982) argues that the conduct parameter is not identified if and only if the inverse demand function is separable, except for a specific separable function. This result has been regarded as an extension of the result in Bresnahan (1982) to more general settings. However, we show that Lau's claim is incorrect and provide a new characterization of the non-identification. Our…

缺少干预前时期的面板数据因果融合AI 解读

Traditional panel-data causal inference frameworks, such as difference-in-differences and synthetic control methods, rely on pre-intervention data to estimate counterfactual means. However, such data may be unavailable in real-world settings when interventions are implemented in response to sudden events, such as public health crises or epidemiological shocks. In this paper, we introduce two data-fusion methods for causal inference from panel data in scenarios where…

贝叶斯网络通常满足忠实性吗？AI 解读

Faithfulness is a common assumption in causal inference, often motivated by the fact that the faithful parameters of linear Gaussian and discrete Bayesian networks are typical, and the folklore belief that this should also hold for other classes of Bayesian networks. We address this open question by showing that among all Bayesian networks over a given DAG, the faithful Bayesian networks are indeed `typical': they constitute a dense, open set with respect to the total…

由成对互动得到的部分识别排序AI 解读

This paper considers the problem of ranking objects based on their latent merits using data from pairwise interactions. We allow for incomplete observation of these interactions and study what can be inferred about rankings in such settings. First, we show that identification of the ranking depends on a tradeoff between the tournament graph and the link function: in parametric models, such as the Bradley-Terry-Luce, rankings are point identified even with sparse graphs,…

非参数二元选择模型的核化估计方法AI 解读

We propose a new estimator for nonparametric binary choice models that does not impose a parametric structure on either the systematic function of covariates or the distribution of the error term. A key advantage of our approach is its computational scalability in the number of covariates. For instance, even when assuming a normal error distribution as in probit models, commonly used sieves for approximating an unknown function of covariates can lead to a large-dimensional…

没有对照组的因果推断与政策评价AI 解读

Without a control group, the most widespread methodologies for estimating causal effects cannot be applied. To fill this gap, we propose the Machine Learning Control Method, a new approach for causal panel analysis that estimates causal parameters without relying on untreated units. We formalize identification within the potential outcomes framework and then provide estimation based on machine learning algorithms. To illustrate the practical relevance of our method, we…

面向高维因果推断的深度因果生成模型模块化学习AI 解读

Sound and complete algorithms have been proposed to compute identifiable causal queries using the causal structure and data. However, most of these algorithms assume accurate estimation of the data distribution, which is impractical for high-dimensional variables such as images. On the other hand, modern deep generative architectures can be trained to sample from high-dimensional distributions. However, training these networks are typically very costly. Thus, it is desirable…