每日简报

基于微观数据的一致半非参数需求估计AI 解读

This paper develops a profiled sieve minimum-distance estimator for a semi-nonparametric differentiated-products demand model with micro-level choice data. Building on Berry and Haile (2024), the estimator uses within-market variation in consumer covariates to recover a flexible consumer-heterogeneity function and market-specific composite intercepts. Excluded price instruments then separate these intercepts into a flexible price-side function and structural demand shocks.…

随机潜在选择与潜在结果AI 解读

Applied econometricians typically model each individual as having fixed outcomes under treatment and control and, in instrumental-variables (IV) settings, fixed treatment decisions under each value of the instrument. This paper asks what changes when outcomes and treatment allocations or choices are stochastic at the individual level. In the model, each individual has a stable (but possibly stochastic) response type consisting of two objects: a treatment choice probability…

存在无效工具变量时多重处理效应的识别与稳健推断AI 解读

The instrumental variable (IV) method is widely used to infer causal effects in observational studies with unmeasured confounding, but invalid instruments can compromise both population identification and finite-sample inference. This paper studies linear IV models with multiple endogenous treatments and possibly invalid instruments. Identification of multiple effects is more delicate than in the single-treatment setting because a single instrument no longer identifies a…

机器学习工具变量下的识别与推断AI 解读

Instrumental-variables estimation increasingly pools many or high-dimensional instruments into a single machine-learned first stage, with rich controls partialled out. The resulting estimand, the partialled-out IV coefficient built from any signal of the instruments, is a signal-weighted average of the heterogeneous effects, which gives an opaque first stage a precise structural meaning. The average is convex whenever a covariance-monotonicity condition holds, and we provide…

CausalSmith：以形式化验证为基础的自我改进因果推断研究代理框架AI 解读

Automating theoretical research requires generating candidate results and evaluating them reliably. Models keep getting better at the first, while the second remains hard. A common approach asks one large language model (LLM) to review what another produced, yet such reviewers are empirically unreliable: they may accept fabricated papers and catch the fabrication at close to chance rates~\citep{badscientist2025}. We present \textsc{CausalSmith}, a framework for automated…

最优连续处理效应的识别与估计AI 解读

Estimating continuous treatment effects is hard because average-derivative estimators rely on an ill-posed conditional-density score. Recent work makes a bounded outcome weight the primitive, characterizing a class of weighted average derivative effects without density estimation. In this paper, we develop the identification and estimation theory for the optimally efficient estimands of this class under homoskedasticity and heteroskedasticity. On identification, we show that…

处理是否有益？有序结局因果推断的贝叶斯方法AI 解读

Randomized experiments with ordinal outcomes are common across scientific applications, but conventional causal estimands such as the average treatment effect are difficult to interpret because ordinal categories lack meaningful numerical spacing. Two interpretable estimands, the probabilities that the treatment is beneficial and strictly beneficial, depend on the joint distribution of the potential outcomes and are therefore not identifiable from observed data. The sharp…

使用学习所得暴露映射开展存在干扰的因果推断AI 解读

Exposure mappings are often assumed to be known in causal spillover analyses. In environmental settings, however, they are typically induced by transport processes that are not directly observed and must instead be learned from pollution data. We study how uncertainty in learned transport processes propagates into exposure mappings and downstream spillover inference under interference. We compare mechanistic transport models with modern operator-learning approaches,…

部分干扰与增量倾向得分政策下的高效双重差分估计AI 解读

This paper develops efficient difference-in-differences (DID) estimation under partial interference with a cluster incremental propensity score (CIPS) policy. We define direct and spillover average treatment effects on the treated, establish their identification, and derive their efficient influence functions, from which we construct a cross-fitted estimator. Simulations evaluate its finite-sample performance. An application to China's New Rural Pension Scheme recovers the…

各期处理均连续分布时的双重差分估计量AI 解读

When studying the effects of taxes, tariffs, or prices using panel data, the treatment is often continuously distributed in every period. We develop difference-in-differences (DID) estimators for such settings. We partition units into switchers, whose treatment changes between consecutive periods, and stayers, whose treatment remains constant. Under a parallel-trends assumption, we show that the slopes of switchers' potential outcomes with respect to the treatment are…

动态处理效应与一般嵌套泛函的自动去偏机器学习AI 解读

Many canonical models in causal inference and structural econometrics have recursive identification formulas. In causal inference, recursion arises when identification requires both pre- and post-treatment covariates. For example, short-term surrogate outcomes are measured after the treatment, and serve as necessary covariates when identifying long-term effects. Post-treatment covariates are also required for identification of dynamic difference-in-differences designs,…

多元连续空气污染暴露研究中考虑人口流动的空间干扰方法AI 解读

We develop new methodology to improve our understanding of the causal effects of multivariate air pollution exposures on public health accounting for mobility. Typically, in environmental health studies, exposure to air pollution for an individual is assigned based on their residential address, though many people spend time in different regions with potentially different levels of air pollution. To account for this, we incorporate estimates of the mobility of individuals…

异质处理效应下工具变量方法的实用指南AI 解读

Instrumental variables (IV) methods are central to applied microeconomics. While classical approaches assume linear models with constant effects, recent literature has shifted toward the local average treatment effect (LATE) framework to accommodate heterogeneous treatment effects. This paper provides a practical guide to aligning empirical practice with recent theory. We first examine how different specifications with covariates lead to distinct weighted averages of…

用于离散选择估计的表格基础模型AI 解读

Tabular foundation models (TFMs) generate predictions on structured data via in-context learning, without task-specific estimation. We ask whether TFMs can be effectively applied to discrete choice, a central demand estimation framework in marketing and operations, and find that directly applying TFMs yields limited performance. The gap is structural: TFMs assume row-independent observations, whereas discrete choice is inherently set-valued and subject to persistent consumer…

未知干扰存在时的双重差分AI 解读

The stable unit treatment value (SUTVA) is a crucial assumption in the Difference-in-Differences (DiD) research design. It rules out hidden versions of treatment and any sort of interference and spillover effects across units. Even if this is a strong assumption, it has not received much attention from DiD practitioners and, in many cases, it is not even explicitly stated as an assumption, especially the no-interference assumption. In this technical note, we investigate what…

比较观测与预测结果估计处理效应：有效推断条件与实践示例AI 解读

Prediction models developed before the introduction of a new treatment may be used to estimate treatment effects of newly introduced treatments. One approach, known as model-based clinical evaluation in radiotherapy, does this by comparing observed outcomes under a new treatment with predicted outcomes had these patients received the standard treatment. This article clarifies the relevant conditions needed for valid average treatment effect estimation using this approach,…

小样本临床试验中协变量调整风险差的评估AI 解读

Binary endpoints are common in clinical trials and conditional odds ratios have traditionally been used to assess treatment effects. However, the interpretation of odds ratios is difficult, they are non-collapsible, and conditional odds-ratios obtained from regression models additionally rely on modeling assumptions in order to be a relevant overall summary measure for the trial. As an alternative, risk differences have gained increasing prominence as a more interpretable,…

混杂变量缺失下因果推断的双重稳健加权回归AI 解读

Missingness in confounders is common in observational studies and presents substantial challenges for causal effect estimation by weakening identification and increasing sensitivity to model misspecification. Within the missing-indicator framework, existing approaches typically rely on a single working model and achieve consistency only when that model is correctly specified and are therefore singly robust. In this article, we develop a doubly robust missing indicator…

贝叶斯变平面回归AI 解读

Change-plane regression represents treatment effect heterogeneity through an interpretable rule that assigns patients to two groups according to whether a linear score of baseline covariates crosses a threshold. Although easy to communicate, likelihood-based inference for the hard threshold is nonregular, invalidating standard large-sample approximations. We develop a Bayesian framework that replaces the sharp indicator with a smooth probit gate at a declared smoothing scale…

时变暴露下的工具变量：血运重建对生活质量的动态效应AI 解读

This paper develops instrumental variables (IV) estimators for dynamic causal effects in randomized trials with imperfect compliance. These methods are applied to a randomized trial that assigned patients with ischemic heart disease to either an invasive treatment arm centered on revascularization or a control group meant to receive non-invasive medical therapy. As is common in such ``strategy trials,'' many participants assigned to treatment remained untreated while many…

随机微分方程的因果图、马尔可夫性质与 do 演算AI 解读

Stochastic differential equations (SDEs) are widely used to model continuous-time dynamical systems, but graphical causal models for them are not yet well-understood. We consider systems of causal SDEs that are equipped with an explicit causal semantics. We pose solvability conditions for systems of causal SDEs such that they have well-defined observational and interventional distributions - even after marginalisation - and provide a general class of Lipschitz semimartingale…

折点聚集下的因果推断AI 解读

Kinked policies change marginal incentives at a threshold, and agents respond by adjusting the assignment variable that determines their treatment. The bunching literature uses this response to estimate the elasticity of the assignment variable; policymakers often care about effects on other outcomes. We develop a framework for estimating causal effects of kinked policies on outcomes beyond the assignment variable when agents can fully manipulate it. Average effects are…

教育回报从何而来？教育阶段转换与劳动力市场收益AI 解读

Conventional research on educational effects typically either employs a "years of schooling" measure of education, or dichotomizes attainment as a point-in-time treatment. Yet, such a conceptualization of education is misaligned with the sequential process by which individuals make educational transitions. In this paper, I propose a causal mediation framework for the study of educational effects on outcomes such as earnings. The framework considers the effect of a given…

Ramsey 式空间交互函数线性检验AI 解读

We propose a computationally straightforward test for the linearity of a spatial interaction function. Such functions arise commonly, either as practitioner imposed specifications or due to optimizing behaviour by agents. Our conditional heteroskedasticity robust test is nonparametric, but based on the Lagrange Multiplier principle and reminiscent of the Ramsey RESET approach. This entails estimation only under the null hypothesis, which yields an easy to estimate linear…