每日简报

NMF-FFB：具有前馈-反馈结构的非负矩阵分解AI 解读

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) approximates a non-negative endogenous data matrix as $Y_1 \approx XB$, with non-negative latent components $X$ and coefficients $B$. Standard covariate-aware NMF is feedforward: $B$ depends only on exogenous variables $Y_2$, with no latent feedback among endogenous variables. We propose NMF-FFB (NMF with feedforward-feedback structure), an exploratory data-fitting framework that embeds the simultaneous equation $B = Θ_1 Y_1 + Θ_2 Y_2$…

稀疏Probit回归的均值场变分贝叶斯方法AI 解读

We consider Bayesian variable selection for binary outcomes under a probit link with a spike-and-slab prior on the regression coefficients. Motivated by the computational challenges encountered by Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) samplers in high-dimensional regimes, we develop a mean-field variational Bayes approximation in which all variational factors admit closed-form updates, and the evidence lower bound is available in closed form. This, in turn, allows the development…

高维部分线性模型与趋势滤波AI 解读

Understanding the links between diet, metabolic changes, and health outcomes is a key focus in nutritional science and broader biological research. Analyzing relationships, such as those between ultra-processed food (UPF) intake and metabolites, offers insights into potential biomarkers for diet-related diseases and public health applications. However, these analyses are challenging due to high-dimensional data structures and complex, often nonlinear associations between…

SMART 微调：因子增强神经网络 LassoAI 解读

Fine-tuning is a widely used strategy for adapting pre-trained models to new tasks, yet its methodology and theoretical properties in high-dimensional nonparametric settings with variable selection have not yet been developed. We propose a source-model-augmented residual tuning (SMART) framework, which incorporates the pre-trained source model as an augmented feature into the target learner and estimates only the residual target-specific component. The approach is widely…

两类代理变量因果识别方法的比较AI 解读

Identifying causal effects in the presence of unmeasured variables is a fundamental challenge in causal inference, for which proxy variable methods have emerged as a powerful solution. We contrast two major approaches in this framework: (1) bridge equation methods, which leverage solutions to integral equations to recover causal targets, and (2) array decomposition methods, which recover latent factors used to identify counterfactual quantities via eigendecomposition tasks.…

通过 Mallows 型模型平均实现广义最优参数迁移学习AI 解读

In many economic applications, multiple source datasets are available, but their effective combination is challenging due to heterogeneity across datasets. To address this problem, we study a parameter-transfer framework that shares only source-side estimates and propose a Mallows-type model averaging method for combining target and source models in the parametric setting. The weights are obtained from a Mallows-type criterion that is unbiased for the target prediction risk…

分布合成控制的渐近性质AI 解读

As an alternative to synthetic control, the distributional Synthetic Control (DSC) proposed by Gunsilius (2023) provides estimates for quantile treatment effect and thus enabling researchers to comprehensively understand the impact of interventions in causal inference. But the asymptotic properties of DSC have not been built. In this paper, we first establish the DSC estimator's asymptotic optimality in the essence that the treatment effect estimator given by DSC achieves…

人口干预中间接效应与干预变量效应的近端推断AI 解读

Unmeasured confounding, unethical exposure, and ill-defined interventions pose significant challenges to evaluating policy-relevant mediation estimands in medicine and public health. In observational studies involving harmful exposures, the population intervention indirect effect (PIIE) is often more salient than the natural indirect effect, as the latter relies on hypothetical interventions that may be ethically or practically unfeasible. While the PIIE can be identified…

用余差预测线性分数稳定运动：非高斯粗糙波动率应用AI 解读

The linear fractional stable motion (LFSM) extends the fractional Brownian motion (fBm) by considering $α$-stable increments. We propose a method to forecast future increments of the LFSM from past discrete-time observations, using the conditional expectation when $α>1$ or a semimetric projection otherwise. It relies on the codifference, which describes the serial dependence of the process, instead of the covariance. Indeed, covariance is commonly used for predicting an fBm…

分布偏移与重叠衰减下的一般目标半参数半监督学习AI 解读

In modern scientific applications, large volumes of covariate data are readily available, while outcome labels are costly, sparse, and often subject to distribution shift. This asymmetry has spurred interest in semi-supervised (SS) learning, but most existing approaches rely on strong assumptions -- such as missing completely at random (MCAR) labeling or strict positivity -- that put substantial limitations on their practical usefulness. In this work, we introduce a general…

平行趋势违反时双重差分前匹配的偏差—方差权衡AI 解读

Quasi-experimental causal inference methods have become central in empirical operations management for guiding managerial decisions. Among these, empiricists utilize the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) estimator, which relies on the parallel trends assumption. To improve its plausibility, researchers often match treated and control units before applying DiD, with the intuition that matched groups are more likely to evolve similarly absent treatment. Existing work that…

后验漂移下的过度参数化模型AI 解读

This paper investigates the impact of posterior drift on out-of-sample forecasting accuracy in overparametrized machine learning models. We document the loss in performance when the loadings of the data generating process change between the training and testing samples. This matters crucially in settings in which regime changes are likely to occur, for instance, in financial markets. Applied to equity premium forecasting, our results underline the sensitivity of a market…

乘法准工具变量模型AI 解读

We introduce the Multiplicative Quasi-Instrumental Variable (MQIV) model, a framework for causal inference with unmeasured confounding that leverages an instrument that may be imperfectly exogenous. We allow the candidate quasi-instrument to have a direct effect on the outcome not mediated by the treatment, thus violating the standard IV exclusion restriction. We establish nonparametric identification of the population average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) under a…

冰淇淋不会导致溺水：评测大语言模型应对因果推断统计陷阱的能力AI 解读

Reliable causal inference is essential for making decisions in high-stakes areas like medicine, economics, and public policy. However, it remains unclear whether large language models (LLMs) can handle rigorous and trustworthy statistical causal inference. Current benchmarks usually involve simplified tasks. For example, these tasks might only ask LLMs to identify semantic causal relationships or draw conclusions directly from raw data. As a result, models may overlook…

通过双重随机化推断检验双重差分系数的显著性AI 解读

This article develops a significance test for the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) estimator based on dual-margin randomization, in which both the treatment and time indicators are independently permuted to generate an empirical null distribution of the DiD estimator. We situate the proposal explicitly within the landscape of existing inference methods for the DiD estimator, including OLS-based $t$-tests, heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors, cluster-robust variance…

事件时间终点缺失数据的临界点敏感性分析：模型法与经验法AI 解读

Treatment policy estimands are frequently favored by regulators, as they assess the effect of treatment assignment regardless of post-randomization events. Despite best efforts, missing data due to study discontinuation cannot be fully avoided and, for time-to-event endpoints, typically manifests as right censoring. Study discontinuation is often more likely following intercurrent events, particularly when it coincides with treatment discontinuation, raising concerns about…

何时能够检测到 p 值操纵？AI 解读

We show that some forms of p-hacking cannot be detected by examining the histogram of t-statistics or their p-values. Even when p-hacking is detectable, standard tests may lack power. We propose a novel test that detects every form of selective reporting that is detectable from the distribution of reported t-statistics. Our test statistic is the distance between the smoothed empirical t-curve and the set of possible honest distributions. This projection test is sharp and can…

非受控概率测度族下能否恢复 L¹–L∞ 对偶性？AI 解读

The duality $L^{\infty}\simeq (L^{1})'$ frequently breaks down in the presence of model uncertainty, where a single reference measure $P$ is replaced by a non-dominated family of probability measures $\mathcal{P}$. The unavailability of classical measure-theoretic and functional-analytic tools in this regime poses a significant obstacle to developing robust probabilistic frameworks. We show that this duality can be restored for a broad class of robust statistical models by…

稀疏性的脆弱性AI 解读

We show, using three empirical applications, that linear regression estimates predicated on the assumption of sparsity are fragile in two ways. First, we document that different choices of the regressor matrix which do not impact ordinary least squares (OLS) estimates, such as the choice of baseline category with categorical controls, can move sparsity-based estimates by two standard errors or more. Second, we develop two tests of the sparsity assumption by comparing…

效应异质性下个体化治疗规则的惩罚回归审慎迁移学习AI 解读

Estimating individualized treatment rules (ITRs) is fundamental to precision medicine, where the goal is to tailor treatment decisions to individual patient characteristics. While numerous methods have been developed for ITR estimation, there is limited research on model updating that accounts for shifted treatment-covariate relationships in the ITR setting. In practice, models trained on source data must be updated for new (target) datasets that exhibit shifts in treatment…

因果多任务需求学习AI 解读

We study a canonical multi-task demand-learning problem motivated by retail pricing, where a firm seeks to estimate heterogeneous linear price-response functions across multiple decision contexts. Each context is described by rich covariates but exhibits limited price variation, motivating transfer learning across tasks. A central challenge in leveraging cross-task transfer is endogeneity: prices may be arbitrarily correlated with unobserved task-level demand determinants…

序贯网络博弈中的个体化处理分配AI 解读

Designing individualized allocation of treatments so as to maximize the equilibrium welfare of interacting agents has many policy-relevant applications. Focusing on sequential decision games of interacting agents, this paper develops a method to obtain optimal treatment assignment rules that maximize a social welfare criterion by evaluating stationary distributions of outcomes. Stationary distributions in sequential decision games are given by Gibbs distributions, which are…

因果森林纳入试验参与变量时的有限样本偏差—方差权衡AI 解读

Estimating conditional average treatment effects (CATE) from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and generalizing them to broader populations is essential for personalizing treatment rules but is complicated by selection bias due to trial participation and potentially high dimensional covariates. We evaluated finite sample bias variance tradeoff for Causal Forest based CATE estimation strategies to address the selection bias. Identification theory suggests unbiased CATE…

超越次高斯情形的向量自归一化集中不等式AI 解读

The study of self-normalized processes plays a crucial role in a wide range of applications, from sequential decision-making to econometrics. While the behavior of self-normalized concentration has been widely investigated for scalar-valued processes, vector-valued processes remain comparatively underexplored, especially outside of the sub-Gaussian framework. In this contribution, we provide concentration bounds for self-normalized processes with light tails beyond…