每日简报

存在未观测混杂时连续处理效应的锐界AI 解读

In causal inference, treatment effects are typically estimated under the ignorability, or unconfoundedness, assumption, which is often unrealistic in observational data. By relaxing this assumption and conducting a sensitivity analysis, we introduce novel bounds and derive confidence intervals for the Average Potential Outcome (APO) - a standard metric for evaluating continuous-valued treatment or exposure effects. We demonstrate that these bounds are sharp under a…

因果发现数据的全景：立足真实应用的因果发现AI 解读

Causal discovery aims to automatically uncover causal relationships from data, a capability with significant potential across many scientific disciplines. However, its real-world applications remain limited. Current methods often rely on unrealistic assumptions and are evaluated only on simple synthetic toy datasets, often with inadequate evaluation metrics. In this paper, we substantiate these claims by performing a systematic review of the recent causal discovery…

算法公平性与准确性前沿的统计推断AI 解读

Algorithms are increasingly used to aid with high-stakes decision making. Yet, their predictive ability frequently exhibits systematic variation across population subgroups. To assess the trade-off between fairness and accuracy using finite data, we propose a debiased machine learning estimator for the fairness-accuracy frontier introduced by Liang, Lu, Mu, and Okumura (2024). We derive its asymptotic distribution and propose inference methods to test key hypotheses in the…

含交互效应的动态空间分位数模型的贝叶斯推断AI 解读

With the rapid advancement of information technology and data collection systems, large-scale spatial panel data presents new methodological and computational challenges. This paper introduces a dynamic spatial panel quantile model that incorporates unobserved heterogeneity. The proposed model captures the dynamic structure of panel data, high-dimensional cross-sectional dependence, and allows for heterogeneous regression coefficients. To estimate the model, we propose a…

准实验的设计型不确定性AI 解读

Design-based frameworks of uncertainty are frequently used in settings where the treatment is (conditionally) randomly assigned. This paper develops a design-based framework suitable for analyzing quasi-experimental settings in the social sciences, in which the treatment assignment can be viewed as the realization of some stochastic process but there is concern about unobserved selection into treatment. In our framework, treatments are stochastic, but units may differ in…

多评分断点回归设计中的森林方法AI 解读

We discuss estimation and inference of conditional treatment effects in regression discontinuity (RD) designs with multiple scores. In addition to local linear regressions and the minimax-optimal estimator more recently proposed by Imbens and Wager (2019), we argue that two variants of random forests, honest regression forests and local linear forests, should be added to the toolkit of applied researchers working with multivariate RD designs; their validity follows from…

利用双重正例与未标记数据学习识别潜在客户AI 解读

In this study, we propose a method for identifying potential customers in targeted marketing by applying learning from positive and unlabeled data (PU learning). We consider a scenario in which a company sells a product and can observe only the customers who purchased it. Decision-makers seek to market products effectively based on whether people have loyalty to the company. Individuals with loyalty are those who are likely to remain interested in the company even without…

用于双重差分的森林：超越参数模型的因果推断AI 解读

This paper introduces the Difference-in-Differences Bayesian Causal Forest (DiD-BCF), a novel non-parametric model addressing key challenges in DiD estimation, such as staggered adoption and heterogeneous treatment effects. DiD-BCF provides a unified framework for estimating Average (ATE), Group-Average (GATE), and Conditional Average Treatment Effects (CATE). A core innovation, its Parallel Trends Assumption (PTA)-based reparameterization, enhances estimation accuracy and…

评价时变处理效应的随机化方法AI 解读

Tests for paired censored outcomes have been extensively studied, with some justified in the context of randomization-based inference. These tests are primarily designed to detect an overall treatment effect across the entire follow-up period, providing limited insight into when the effect manifests and how it changes over time. In this article, we introduce new randomization-based tests for paired censored outcomes that enable both time-specific and long-term analysis of a…

利用因果速度模型区分原因与结果AI 解读

Bivariate structural causal models (SCM) are often used to infer causal direction by examining their goodness-of-fit under restricted model classes. In this paper, we describe a parametrization of bivariate SCMs in terms of a causal velocity by viewing the cause variable as time in a dynamical system. The velocity implicitly defines counterfactual curves via the solution of initial value problems where the observation specifies the initial condition. Using tools from measure…

累计无限阶整数值自回归过程的最小二乘统计推断AI 解读

This paper investigates the cumulative Integer-Valued Autoregressive model of infinite order, denoted as INAR($\infty$), a class of processes crucial for modeling count time series and equivalent to discrete-time Hawkes processes. We propose a computationally efficient conditional least-squares (CLS) estimator to address the challenge of parameter inference in this infinite-dimensional setting. We establish the key theoretical properties of the estimator, including its…

含交互效应动态面板模型的准极大似然估计效率AI 解读

This paper studies the problem of efficient estimation of panel data models in the presence of an increasing number of incidental parameters. We formulate the dynamic panel as a simultaneous equations system, and derive the efficiency bound under the normality assumption. We then show that the Gaussian quasi-maximum likelihood estimator (QMLE) applied to the system achieves the normality efficiency bound without the normality assumption. Comparison of QMLE with the fixed…

条件三重差分法AI 解读

Triple difference-in-differences designs are widely used to estimate causal effects in empirical work. Surveying the literature, we find that most applications include controls. We show that this standard practice is generally biased for the target causal estimand when covariate distributions differ across groups. To address this, we propose identifying a causal estimand by fixing the covariate distribution to that of one group. We then develop a double-robust estimator and…

因果发现优于随机猜测吗？评估算法时使用负对照AI 解读

New proposals for causal discovery algorithms are typically evaluated using simulations and a few selected real data examples with known data generating mechanisms. However, there does not exist a general guideline for how such evaluation studies should be designed, and therefore, comparing results across different studies can be difficult. In this article, we propose to use negative controls as a common evaluation baseline by posing the question: Are we doing better than…

因果推断中的泛化能力检验AI 解读

Ensuring robust model performance in diverse real-world scenarios requires addressing generalizability across domains with covariate shifts. However, no formal procedure exists for statistically evaluating generalizability in machine learning algorithms. Existing predictive metrics like mean squared error (MSE) help to quantify the relative performance between models, but do not directly answer whether a model can or cannot generalize. To address this gap in the domain of…

基于局部回归潜在结果插补的条件平均处理效应估计AI 解读

One of the most significant challenges in Conditional Average Treatment Effect (CATE) estimation is the statistical discrepancy between distinct treatment groups. To address this issue, we propose a model-agnostic data augmentation method for CATE estimation. First, we derive regret bounds for general data augmentation methods suggesting that a small imputation error may be necessary for accurate CATE estimation. Inspired by this idea, we propose a contrastive learning…

量化处理效应：因果推断中的风险比估计AI 解读

Randomized Controlled Trials (RCT) are the current gold standards to empirically measure the effect of a new drug. However, they may be of limited size and resorting to complementary non-randomized data, referred to as observational, is promising, as additional sources of evidence. In both RCT and observational data, the Risk Difference (RD) is often used to characterize the effect of a drug. Additionally, medical guidelines recommend to also report the Risk Ratio (RR),…

适用于一般处理类型的 Fisher 因果随机化检验AI 解读

We extend Fisher's randomization test (FRT) to test conditional independence between observed outcomes and treatments given covariates in both randomized experiments and observational studies, with no restriction on the variable type of treatments. Under a generalized unconfoundedness assumption, we provide causal identification for this hypothesis. Our approach requires neither the no-interference nor the positive overlap assumption, making it a widely applicable tool for…