每日简报

插补就够了：平均处理效应估计的双稳健、半参数有效性与自动协变量平衡AI 解读

Imputation-based causal estimation is typically viewed as relying exclusively on an outcome model, in contrast to augmented inverse-probability weighting, whose consistency is protected by fitting two nuisance models. This paper argues that this view can be misleading by highlighting a hidden dual weighting structure in least-squares sieve regression imputation. Although only outcome regressions are explicitly fitted, the resulting imputation estimator admits an exact…

持续在线实验：动态处理下的序贯检验与错误发现率控制AI 解读

Generative AI has dramatically accelerated the rate at which new treatments---from novel pharmaceuticals to online marketing campaigns---can be conceived and deployed. As a result, modern experimentation platforms often run continuously, with treatments added as they are ready and removed when they underperform. We formalize this "Always-On" experimental setting, in which treatments can be dynamically generated, added to, and removed from a running experiment, and study the…

最优配置与曲面下体积AI 解读

This paper develops a framework for estimation and inference on the volumes of sets that are projections of critical function sets, focusing particularly on the convex body beneath the optimal receiver operating characteristic (ROC) surface. Specifically, we propose a volume calculation method that first uses an Aumann expectation representation and then applies Minkowski mixed volumes. Using this framework, we show that the population volume under the ROC surface (VUS) is…

含时间趋势试验中的估计目标与估计方法AI 解读

In platform trials, model-based approaches typically estimate treatment effects conditional on calendar time. However, scientific and regulatory interest often lies in treatment effects defined for a target population spanning multiple enrollment periods, requiring explicit consideration of how effects should be averaged across time. This raises two fundamental challenges. The first is the definition of the appropriate target estimand when combining data across multiple…

不可测混杂下因果效应估计的近端平衡方法AI 解读

Estimating causal effects from observational data is central to science and policy, but the effects are not identified when confounders are unmeasured. Proximal causal inference addresses this problem with proxies of the unmeasured confounders. However, existing proxy-based approaches either designate proxy roles and solve an inverse problem, which is ill-posed and hard to estimate with high-dimensional proxies, or use a latent-variable model, which assumes that the learned…

熵正则化最优传输下的部分识别AI 解读

In many statistical settings, the available data and maintained assumptions do not suffice to uniquely identify the model parameters of interest. In such cases, one can only identify sets which are guaranteed to contain the true parameters. These are often characterized through linear programs that optimize over models compatible with the observed data. These programs can be infinite-dimensional in the optimizer and the number of constraints. We provide a unified way to…

受约束分类与政策学习AI 解读

Modern machine learning approaches to classification, including AdaBoost, support vector machines, and deep neural networks, utilize surrogate loss techniques to circumvent the computational complexity of minimizing empirical classification risk. These techniques are also useful for causal policy learning problems, since estimation of individualized treatment rules can be cast as a weighted (cost-sensitive) classification problem. Consistency of the surrogate loss approaches…

离散选择面板模型中平均效应的界AI 解读

In discrete choice panel data, estimation of average effects is crucial for quantifying the effect of covariates, and for policy evaluation and counterfactual analysis. However, in short panels with individual-specific effects, challenges arise due to partial identification and the incidental parameter problem. In particular, estimating the sharp identified set of average effects becomes impractical when covariates have large support sets, such as when they are continuous.…

挖掘因果关系：人工智能辅助搜索工具变量AI 解读

The instrumental variables (IVs) method is a leading empirical strategy for causal inference. Finding IVs is a heuristic and creative process, and justifying their validity---especially exclusion restrictions---is largely rhetorical. We propose using large language models (LLMs) to search for new IVs through narratives and counterfactual reasoning, similar to how a human researcher would. The stark difference, however, is that LLMs can dramatically accelerate this process…

利用路径签名回归进行即时预测AI 解读

We introduce a new method of nowcasting using regression on path signatures. Path signatures capture the geometric properties of sequential data. Because signatures embed observations in continuous time, they naturally handle mixed frequencies and missing data. We prove theoretically, and demonstrate with simulations, that regression on signatures both subsumes the linear Kalman filter and has desirable consistency properties. Nowcasting with signatures is more robust to…

Wearable devices for continuous electronic health monitoring often capture data at frequent intervals under a dense functional design. The focal point is the analysis of longitudinal functional data, wherein functional trajectories are observed repeatedly over time. This work is motivated by the interest in assessing the efficacy of a noninflammatory medication, meloxicam, on the daily activity levels of household cats with a pre-existing condition of osteoarthritis under a…

高维非线性因子模型的最优估计AI 解读

This paper studies optimal estimation of large-dimensional nonlinear factor models. The key challenge is that the observed variables are possibly nonlinear functions of some latent variables, with the functional forms left unspecified. A local principal component analysis method combining K-nearest neighbors matching and principal component analysis is proposed to estimate the factor structure and recover information on latent variables and latent functions. Large-sample…

工具变量回归中维度自适应的自助法 Anderson–Rubin 检验AI 解读

Weak-identification-robust tests for instrumental variable (IV) regressions are typically developed separately depending on whether the number of IVs is treated as fixed or increasing with the sample size, forcing researchers to make a stance on the asymptotic behavior, which is often ambiguous in practice. This paper proposes a bootstrap-based, dimension-agnostic Anderson-Rubin (AR) test that achieves correct asymptotic size regardless of whether the number of IVs is fixed…

何时能够进行奈曼正交推断？存在性与信息相关性AI 解读

Neyman-orthogonal moments underpin debiased and double machine learning, yet their existence and informativeness are typically presumed. We ask three questions: when do nontrivial orthogonal moments exist, which target directions contain first-order information, and does a proposed moment detect all such directions? Restricted local overidentification characterizes existence under attainability. Effective Fisher information determines relevance; its rank counts informative…

随机实验中的 Neyman 式推断AI 解读

In his seminal 1923 work, Neyman studied the variance estimation problem for the difference-in-means estimator of the average treatment effect in completely randomized experiments. He proposed a variance estimator that is conservative in general and unbiased under homogeneous treatment effects. While widely used under complete randomization, there is no unique or natural way to extend this estimator to more complex designs. To this end, we show that Neyman's estimator can be…

扰动效用模型的 Fenchel–Young 估计量AI 解读

Perturbed Utility Models (PUMs) represent discrete choice as utility maximization under convex perturbation or regularization, encompassing a broad class of choice models, including Multinomial Logit (MNL) and models that permit zero choice probabilities. Because, for general perturbations, maximum likelihood may be non-convex, and the negative log-likelihood is infinite when a sparse model assigns zero probability to an observed choice, we specialize the Fenchel--Young…

混合分布之间的桥接AI 解读

The construction and the stability of bridges between mixture probability measures are investigated. Given a collection of Markov transitions bridging the components of two mixtures, together with a coupling of the mixture labels, we construct a bridge between the mixtures on an extended state space, and we show that this bridge inherits the entropic optimality of the component bridges. We then turn to Gaussian mixtures bridged by Gaussian Schrödinger bridges, whose…

谱正则化下均值与协方差函数的极小极大最优估计AI 解读

Estimation of the mean and covariance functions is a fundamental problem in functional data analysis, particularly for discretely observed functional data. In this work, we study a regularization-based framework for estimating the mean and the covariance functions within a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS) setting. Our approach utilizes a spectral regularization technique under Hölder-type source conditions, allowing for a broad class of regularization schemes and…

用于贝叶斯推断的正则化指数倾斜经验似然AI 解读

Bayesian inference with empirical likelihood faces a challenge as the posterior domain is a proper subset of the original parameter space due to the convex hull constraint. We propose a regularized exponentially tilted empirical likelihood to address this issue. Our method removes the convex hull constraint using a novel regularization technique, incorporating a continuous exponential family distribution to satisfy a Kullback--Leibler divergence criterion. The regularization…

作为自然变换的统计模型：马尔可夫范畴中的有意义性、协调性与先验状态AI 解读

We show that a statistical model in the sense of McCullagh, in the form given by Brøns, is a natural transformation between two functors from the category of designs to the Kleisli category Stoch of the Giry monad, provided that its components are measurable in the parameter. The condition is empty for finite models. A design-indexed quantity is a family of morphisms of Stoch defined on the parameter objects, called meaningful if it is natural. We prove that Tjur's…

正则非光滑模型的归一化最大似然：测度论基础与几何采样AI 解读

The Normalized Maximum Likelihood (NML) codelength, or stochastic complexity, represents a principled criterion for universal coding. While recent coarea-based formulations provided a calculation method for smooth models, this framework collapses for the non-smooth estimators ubiquitous in modern machine learning (e.g., Lasso, Sparse SVMs). In this work, we provide a rigorous framework for computing the NML for regular path-differentiable Lipschitz (PDL) estimators. By…

双重差分与合成控制的结合：双重稳健识别和估计AI 解读

Difference-in-Differences (DiD) and Synthetic Control (SC) are widely used methods for causal inference in panel data, each with distinct strengths and limitations. We propose a novel method for short-panel causal inference that integrates the advantages of both approaches. Our method delivers a doubly robust identification strategy for the average treatment effect on the treated (ATT) under either of two non-nested assumptions: parallel trends or a group-level SC condition.…

利用投影核与惩罚过拟合比较的自适应密度估计AI 解读

In this work, we study wavelet projection estimators for density estimation, based on compactly supported $\mathcal S$-regular scaling functions. The main issue is the choice of the resolution level, which determines the bias--variance trade-off. We select this level by a Penalized Comparison to Overfitting (PCO) criterion: each candidate estimator is compared in $Ł^2(\R)$ with a single overfitting reference, and the additional stochastic fluctuation is corrected by an…

多输出系统辨识的有限样本界AI 解读

This paper presents uniform-in-time error bounds for regularized linear regression with vector-valued outputs and conditionally zero-mean subgaussian noise. By revisitileveraging self-normalized martingale arguments, we obtain bounds that apply directly to multi-output regression. These bounds are tighter and hold in more general settings than commonly used methods in finite-sample system identification. Furthermore, because of a novel treatment of the regularization bias,…