每日简报

利用再中心化工具变量估计需求AI 解读

We develop a new approach to estimating flexible demand models with exogenous supply-side shocks. Our approach avoids conventional assumptions of exogenous product characteristics, putting no restrictions on product entry, despite using instrumental variables that incorporate characteristic variation. The proposed instruments are model-predicted responses of endogenous variables to the exogenous shocks, recentered to avoid bias from endogenous characteristics. We illustrate…

增长网络的因果模型AI 解读

Real-world networks grow over time; statistical models based on node exchangeability are not appropriate. Instead of constraining the structure of the \textit{distribution} of edges, we propose that the relevant symmetries refer to the \textit{causal structure} between them. We first enumerate the 96 causal directed acyclic graph (DAG) models over pairs of nodes (dyad variables) in a growing network with finite ancestral sets that are invariant to node deletion. We then…

MMCE：多重因果效应的深度单调建模框架AI 解读

When we plan to use money as an incentive to change the behavior of a person (such as making riders to deliver more orders or making consumers to buy more items), the common approach of this problem is to adopt a two-stage framework in order to maximize ROI under cost constraints. In the first stage, the individual price response curve is obtained. In the second stage, business goals and resource constraints are formally expressed and modeled as an optimization problem. The…

依赖删失下服从者因果风险比的估计AI 解读

In this work, we are interested in studying the causal effect of an endogenous binary treatment on a dependently censored duration outcome. By dependent censoring, it is meant that the duration time ($T$) and right censoring time ($C$) are not statistically independent of each other, even after conditioning on the measured covariates. The endogeneity issue is handled by making use of a binary instrumental variable for the treatment. To deal with the dependent censoring…

利用扩散模型生成数据增强因果效应估计AI 解读

Estimating causal effects from observational data is inherently challenging due to the lack of observable counterfactual outcomes and even the presence of unmeasured confounding. Traditional methods often rely on restrictive, untestable assumptions or necessitate valid instrumental variables, significantly limiting their applicability and robustness. In this paper, we introduce Augmented Causal Effect Estimation (ACEE), an innovative approach that utilizes synthetic data…

分布值结局的断点回归设计AI 解读

This article introduces Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) with Distribution-Valued Outcomes (R3D), extending the standard RDD framework to settings where the outcome is a distribution rather than a scalar. Such settings arise when treatment is assigned at a higher level of aggregation than the outcome-for example, when a subsidy is allocated based on a firm-level revenue cutoff while the outcome of interest is the distribution of employee wages within the firm. Since…

洛伦兹曲线时间序列预测：单因素函数型方差分析AI 解读

The Lorenz curve is a fundamental tool for analysing income and wealth distribution and inequality at national and regional levels. We utilise a one-way functional analysis of variance to decompose a time series of Lorenz curves and develop a method for producing one-step-ahead point and interval forecasts. The one-way functional analysis of variance is easily interpretable by decomposing an array into a functional grand effect, a functional row effect and residual…

右删失生存数据中个体化处理效应的不确定性：BART 与因果生存森林比较AI 解读

Estimation of individualized treatment effects (ITE), also known as conditional average treatment effects (CATE), is an active area of methodology development. However, much less attention has been paid to the quantification of uncertainty of ITE/CATE estimates in right-censored survival data. Here we undertake an extensive simulation study to examine the coverage of interval estimates from two popular estimation algorithms, Bayesian additive regression trees (BART) and…

高维面板数据中的分位数处理效应AI 解读

We introduce novel estimators for quantile causal effects with high dimensional panel data (large $N$ and $T$), where only one or a few units are affected by the intervention or policy. Our method extends the generalized synthetic control method \citep{xu_2017} from average treatment effects on the treated to quantile treatment effects on the treated, allowing the underlying factor structure to change across the quantile of the interested outcome distribution. Our method…

汤普森采样下的反事实推断AI 解读

Recommender systems exemplify sequential decision-making under uncertainty, strategically deciding what content to serve to users, to optimise a range of potential objectives. To balance the explore-exploit trade-off successfully, Thompson sampling provides a natural and widespread paradigm to probabilistically select which action to take. Questions of causal and counterfactual inference, which underpin use-cases like offline evaluation, are not straightforward to answer in…

因果推断并不特殊：将其理解为预测问题的视角AI 解读

Causal inference is often portrayed as fundamentally distinct from predictive modeling, with its own terminology, goals, and intellectual challenges. But at its core, causal inference is simply a structured instance of prediction under distribution shift. In both cases, we begin with labeled data from a source domain and seek to generalize to a target domain where outcomes are not observed. The key difference is that in causal inference, the labels -- potential outcomes --…

连续工具变量下局部处理效应的非参数估计AI 解读

Instrumental variable methods are widely used to address unmeasured confounding, yet much of the existing literature has focused on the binary instrument setting. Extensions to continuous instruments often impose strong parametric assumptions for identification and estimation, which can be difficult to justify and may limit their applicability in complex real-world settings. In this work, we develop theory and methods for nonparametric estimation of treatment effects with a…

如何选择分析方法：州级政策评估中的关键研究设计考量AI 解读

This paper reviews and details methods for state policy evaluation to guide selection of a research approach based on evaluation setting and available data. We highlight key design considerations for an analysis, including treatment and control group selection, timing of policy adoption, expected effect heterogeneity, and data considerations. We then provide an overview of analytic approaches and differentiate between methods based on evaluation context, such as settings…

允许任意溢出与延续效应的时空因果推断：伊拉克战争中的空袭与叛乱暴力AI 解读

Social scientists now routinely draw on high-frequency, high-granularity ''microlevel'' data to estimate the causal effects of subnational interventions. To date, most researchers aggregate these data into panels, often tied to large-scale administrative units. This approach has two limitations. First, data (over)aggregation obscures valuable spatial and temporal information, heightening the risk of mistaken inferences. Second, existing panel approaches either ignore spatial…

忽略面板非线性导致的弱工具变量：Super Learner 控制函数估计AI 解读

A triangular structural panel data model with additive separable individual-specific effects is used to model the causal effect of a covariate on an outcome variable when there are unobservable confounders with some of them time-invariant. In this setup, a linear specification for the reduced-form equation might be problematic when the conditional mean of the endogenous covariate and the instrumental variables is nonlinear in the population. The reason is that ignoring the…

未知测量误差分布下的非参数分位数回归与一致推断AI 解读

This paper studies the non-parametric estimation and uniform inference for the conditional quantile regression function (CQRF) with covariates exposed to measurement errors. We consider the case that the distribution of the measurement error is unknown and allowed to be either ordinary or super smooth. We estimate the density of the measurement error by the repeated measurements and propose the deconvolution kernel estimator for the CQRF. We derive the uniform Bahadur…

动态因果效应中的非线性：如何改善负权重估计的解释？AI 解读

This paper was prepared as a comment on "Dynamic Causal Effects in a Nonlinear World: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" by Michal Kolesár and Mikkel Plagborg-Møller. We make three comments, including a novel contribution to the literature, showing how a reasonable economic interpretation can potentially be restored for average-effect estimators with negative weights.

多阶段分层抽样与学生未参与下国际大型测评平均成绩的部分识别AI 解读

International large-scale assessment (ILSA) studies collect information across education systems with the objective of learning about the population-wide distribution of student achievement in the assessment. In this article, we study one of the most fundamental threats that these studies face when justifying the conclusions reached about these distributions: the identification problem that arises from student non-participation during data collection. Recognizing that ILSA…

处理效应外推的贝叶斯方法比较：大规模模拟研究AI 解读

Extrapolating treatment effects from related studies is a promising strategy for designing and analyzing clinical trials in situations where achieving an adequate sample size is challenging. Bayesian methods are well-suited for this purpose, as they enable the synthesis of prior information through the use of prior distributions. While the operating characteristics of Bayesian approaches for borrowing data from control arms have been extensively studied, methods that borrow…

多元因果效应：贝叶斯因果回归因子模型AI 解读

The impact of wildfire smoke on air quality is a growing concern, contributing to air pollution through a complex mixture of chemical species with important implications for public health. While previous studies have primarily focused on its association with total particulate matter (PM2.5), the causal relationship between wildfire smoke and the chemical composition of PM2.5 remains largely unexplored. Exposure to these chemical mixtures plays a critical role in shaping…

条件边际效应估计的实用指南：现代方法AI 解读

This Element offers a practical guide to estimating conditional marginal effects-how treatment effects vary with a moderating variable-using modern statistical methods. Commonly used approaches, such as linear interaction models, often suffer from unclarified estimands, limited overlap, and restrictive functional forms. This guide begins by clearly defining the estimand and presenting the main identification results. It then reviews and improves upon existing solutions, such…

非参数回归的稳健经验似然及其断点回归应用AI 解读

Empirical likelihood serves as a powerful tool for constructing confidence intervals in nonparametric regression and regression discontinuity designs (RDD). The original empirical likelihood framework can be naturally extended to these settings using local linear smoothers, with Wilks' theorem holding only when an undersmoothed bandwidth is selected. However, the generalization of bias-corrected versions of empirical likelihood under more realistic conditions is non-trivial…

仅含当前治疗的 Cox 模型在因果推断中的局限AI 解读

Cox models with time-varying treatments often include only the current treatment level. Translating such a model into causally meaningful intervention-specific survival probabilities relies on the Markov property: that the hazard is independent of treatment history conditional on current treatment. For the Markov property to not be population-specific, it needs to hold also conditional on any unmeasured prognostic heterogeneity (frailty). Using a discrete-time argument,…

数据丰富环境下的因果推断框架AI 解读

We propose a formal model for counterfactual estimation with unobserved confounding in "data-rich" settings, i.e., where there are a large number of units and a large number of measurements per unit. Our model provides a bridge between the structural causal model view of causal inference common in the graphical models literature with that of the latent factor model view common in the potential outcomes literature. We show how classic models for potential outcomes and…