每日简报

逆向混杂分析：精确量化混杂影响AI 解读

The presence of unmeasured confounding factors during the collection of observational data may lead to biased estimates of the effect of an exposure on an outcome. Consequently, a central problem in causal inference based on observational data is sensitivity analysis with respect to unmeasured confounding. Existing sensitivity analyses generally focus on worst-case bounds. We propose an exact method for quantifying the significance of confounding, defined here in terms of…

分位数回归的分布式选择后推断AI 解读

We propose a distributed selective inference framework tailored for high-dimensional quantile regression. To enable valid post-selection inference in this context, we address the computational challenge posed by the non-smooth quantile loss via a response-surrogation strategy. This strategy transforms the problem into a penalized least-squares formulation, thereby facilitating distributed selective inference. For valid post-selection inference, a randomized procedure is…

半合成数据基准可反驳但不能认证：因果模拟中的投影与正则性AI 解读

Plasmode simulation - resampling covariates, and often treatment, from a real cohort and regenerating the outcome from a model with an injected effect - is a standard tool for comparing causal-inference estimators. We argue that its validity turns on two separable design choices, and that separating them clarifies a recent debate over resampling versus regenerating the treatment. Our central message limits what such a benchmark can show: a plasmode can refute a universal…

同伴效应中的不对称性AI 解读

Individuals are often influenced by their peers because deviating from prevailing behavior entails social costs. However, existing peer effects models typically assume that individuals respond similarly to peers who perform better or worse than they do. This paper introduces a novel structural model of asymmetric peer effects in which conformity incentives depend on whether individuals perform below or above each of their peers. We establish that the model admits a unique…

个体因果效应的局部保形预测AI 解读

Standard CATE estimators become inadequate under strong treatment-effect heterogeneity: confidence intervals for conditional means need not cover individual counterfactual effects. We propose an Individualized Causal Prediction (ICP) framework that constructs finite-sample valid conformal prediction intervals for the individual causal effect of a specific query unit. The method localizes calibration to a causally relevant neighborhood using cosine similarity weighted by…

广义 AKM：工资分解中的灵活控制与交互作用AI 解读

How much wage dispersion is attributed to workers, firms, and their sorting depends on how wages are adjusted for observed characteristics. Standard AKM decompositions impose a known linear adjustment. We develop Generalized AKM, a framework that permits an unknown smooth covariate function and group-specific nonlinear interactions while preserving the original variance components. We prove consistency and asymptotic normality with heteroskedastic errors and many fixed…

面板数据中的偏差稳健因果推断AI 解读

We develop a bias-robust causal inference method for observational panel data settings. Such methods typically impute untreated outcomes, so counterfactual error passes straight into the estimated treatment effect while conventional standard errors ignore it. We adapt bias-aware minimax methods, developed for estimating regression coefficients in factor-model panels, to a causal target: the average effect on the treated, which has to be imputed and may vary across units and…

精细分层实验的图拉普拉斯方差估计量AI 解读

This paper considers design-based inference on the average treatment effect in finely stratified experiments, where uncertainty arises only from the randomized treatment assignment. We focus on settings in which units are first stratified into groups of fixed size according to baseline covariates and, then within each group, exactly one unit is assigned to treatment. In this setting, we introduce a class of graph-Laplacian variance estimators in which strata form the…

参数符号一致性的检验AI 解读

This article considers the problem of testing sign agreement among a finite number of parameters. This problem arises in empirical settings such as detecting treatment effects with opposite signs across subgroups, outcomes, or time periods, and testing instrument validity for local average treatment effects. For the null hypothesis that the parameters are either all non-negative or all non-positive, I propose two novel tests: a least favorable test and a conditional test.…

COMPACT：基于完整且不可约因果准则的谱调整得分AI 解读

Observational datasets frequently contain many baseline variables, yet investigators estimating causal effects may not know which variables to include in the adjustment set. Confounding information may also be distributed weakly across many variables. Propensity scores can simplify adjustment by reducing high-dimensional covariates to a scalar with binary treatment. Although the propensity score is the coarsest balancing score, this distributional optimality does not imply…

刻画非对称选择反应的多项 Probit 模型AI 解读

Standard multinomial probit (MNP) models specify symmetric latent utility distributions, implying that choice probabilities respond symmetrically to positive and negative covariate shifts of the same magnitude. This restriction is often implausible in empirical choice settings and can lead to misleading elasticity and substitution predictions. We propose a skewed multinomial probit (SMNP) model that captures asymmetric choice responses by specifying a multivariate…

结合专家与大语言模型的 g-computation：估计医院干预节省的时间AI 解读

Hospital quality improvement (QI) programs routinely face multiple candidate interventions to optimize hospital flow, but existing methods struggle to estimate and rank the causal effects of such interventions. This work focuses on one of the most standard hospital metrics, the average length of stay (LOS), and its causal estimand, the average time saved. To characterize this causal effect, qualitative approaches rely on expert judgment to map patient trajectories, making…

具有高阶自回归误差的面板 Beta 回归联合条件极大似然估计AI 解读

Existing panel beta regression estimators do not accommodate higher-order autoregressive dependence within a joint likelihood framework. We develop such an estimator: a joint conditional maximum-likelihood beta-AR(k) model extended from a single time series to panel data, and extend it to panel inference through two new covariance estimators - a generalization of Beck-Katz panel-corrected standard errors (PCSE) and a Driscoll-Kraay-style alternative (DK) - to account for the…

利用单次行程数据估计扰动效用路径选择模型AI 解读

We provide an estimator for the perturbed utility route choice (PURC) model that works with data at the level of individual trips. The estimator is a nested fixed-point algorithm that combines an upper bias-corrected linear regression problem with a lower individual-level perturbed utility maximization problem. We establish the statistical properties of the microPURC estimator and confirm these results with an experiment using simulated data. Finally, we demonstrate the…

群变换污染下结构化结果的因果推断：可观测商空间、无损约化与精确随机化检验AI 解读

Structured potential outcomes such as microscopy images may be recorded after an unknown, unit-specific transformation. If that transformation can depend on treatment, covariates or the intrinsic outcome, raw-coordinate analyses may mix biological effects with acquisition geometry. We study the unrestricted observation model X = Γ . Y(A) and characterize its observable information: a target is uniformly recoverable exactly when it is constant on group orbits, while a Borel…

部分识别下处理选择的局部渐近理论AI 解读

We provide a new asymptotic framework to derive approximately optimal treatment assignments when sampling noise from data is compounded by fundamental uncertainty due to partial identification. We recenter the reduced-form parameter around its \emph{least-favorable} configuration and consider drifting parameter sequences that yield both diminishing levels of sampling uncertainty and of partial identification. We characterize the limiting decision problem as a normal location…

测量误差下分布函数、跳跃及区间概率的估计AI 解读

We consider the classical additive measurement-error model $X=Y+Z$, where the latent random variable $Y$ has unknown distribution $F_Y$ and the error $Z$ has a known distribution. We develop direct estimators for three functionals of $F_Y$: (i) $F_Y(x)$ at continuity points; (ii) interval probabilities $F_Y(y)-F_Y(x)$ when $x<y$ are continuity points; and (iii) the size of a jump at a prespecified discontinuity. We derive non-asymptotic bias and variance bounds, and…

基于图神经网络的网络数据因果中介分析AI 解读

Causal mediation analysis is typically formulated under no interference, an assumption often violated in networked populations. We develop a nonparametric framework for a single large observed network that allows simultaneous treatment and mediator spillovers and high-dimensional network confounding. Exposure and mediator mappings define causal estimands without restricting the true interference mechanism, separating own from spillover effects without prespecified…

未知干扰下利用面板数据学习处理效应AI 解读

When comparison units may also respond to treatment, panel comparisons reflect both the treatment effect and spillovers. If the interference pattern is unknown, observed outcomes alone do not separate the two. I characterize what can nevertheless be learned from panel outcomes under general restrictions, without requiring an exposure mapping or prior classification of affected donors. The framework scales validity bounds for every convex donor weight by its fit before…

随机实验的锐极小极大理论AI 解读

We study minimax-optimal designs and estimators for estimating the sample average treatment effect in finite population randomized experiments, where both design and estimator are unrestricted. For binary potential outcomes, we show this minimax risk is equivalent to the minimax risk $ρ_n^*$ of an estimation problem with $2$ unknown parameters. We leverage this reduction to establish a second-order risk expansion $ρ_n^* = n^{-1} - Cn^{-4/3} + o_n(n^{-4/3})$ for an explicit…

受限因变量模型中可扩展的似然推断AI 解读

Limited dependent variable models are central to empirical economics, but likelihood-based inference is infeasible when likelihoods involve high-dimensional integration over latent variables. This paper proposes Stochastically Estimated Gradient Ascent (SEGA), a scalable estimation approach for limited dependent variable models. Using Fisher's identity, SEGA replaces the intractable likelihood score with an unbiased augmented data score evaluated at a single conditional draw…

异质主体模型的有限信息估计AI 解读

We develop a method for estimating and testing a single block of a macroeconomic model with heterogeneous agents, without placing assumptions on the structure of the rest of the economy. In a large class of models, individual agents' decisions depend on the macroeconomy only through their expectations of the evolution of a finite-dimensional vector of "sufficient statistics" (e.g., asset returns or aggregate earnings). Our estimator selects the structural parameters that…

GFCM：面向因果发现的尾部敏感混合类型条件独立检验AI 解读

Constraint-based causal discovery like PC and FCI depends on its conditional independence test. Partial correlation and the Generalised Covariance Measure (GCM) detect only the conditional covariance of residuals, so they miss dependence in the mean's nonlinear part, the scale, and the tails. Tests that detect more are biased inside PC, not scalable, only continuous, or not aimed at the tails. Our Generalised Feature Covariance Measure (GFCM) is valid, sensitive beyond…

空间场景下设计型推断中的结果建模AI 解读

In the face of spatial interference, researchers are often interested in estimating treatment effects at specific points located in space. Wang et al. (2025) and Pollmann (2023) provide design-based frameworks for estimating spillover effects on points located across a range of distances from interventions. Although these frameworks are design-based, we show their proposed estimands rely on outcomes that are directly unobservable and therefore, require outcome modeling. When…