English

Predictive posteriors under hidden confounding

Methodology 2025-10-14 v2

Abstract

Predicting outcomes in external domains is challenging due to hidden confounders that potentially influence both predictors and outcomes. Well-established methods frequently rely on stringent assumptions, explicit knowledge about the distribution shift across domains, or bias-inducing regularization schemes to enhance generalization. While recent developments in point prediction under hidden confounding attempt to mitigate these shortcomings, they generally do not provide principled uncertainty quantification. We introduce a Bayesian framework that yields well-calibrated predictive distributions across external domains, supports valid model inference, and achieves posterior contraction rates that improve as the number of observed datasets increases. Simulations and a medical application highlight the remarkable empirical coverage of our approach, nearly unchanged when transitioning from low- to moderate-dimensional settings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2507.05170,
  title  = {Predictive posteriors under hidden confounding},
  author = {Carlos García Meixide and David Ríos Insua},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2507.05170},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T03:49:48.445Z