Related papers: Learning Deep Features in Instrumental Variable Re…
In observational studies, treatments are typically not randomized and therefore estimated treatment effects may be subject to confounding bias. The instrumental variable (IV) design plays the role of a quasi-experimental handle since the IV…
Querying causal effects from time-series data is important across various fields, including healthcare, economics, climate science, and epidemiology. However, this task becomes complex in the existence of time-varying latent confounders,…
We propose the instrumental variable regime (IVR) method to estimate the causal effects of multiple sequential treatments. This method serves to address the problem of endogenous selections of sequential treatments. An IVR is a sequence of…
Many treatment variables used in empirical applications nest multiple unobserved versions of a treatment. I show that instrumental variable (IV) estimands for the effect of a composite treatment are IV-specific weighted averages of effects…
Estimating dynamic treatment regimes (DTRs) from retrospective observational data is challenging as some degree of unmeasured confounding is often expected. In this work, we develop a framework of estimating properly defined "optimal" DTRs…
Imitation learning from demonstrations usually suffers from the confounding effects of unmeasured variables (i.e., unmeasured confounders) on the states and actions. If ignoring them, a biased estimation of the policy would be entailed. To…
The Granular Instrumental Variables (GIV) methodology exploits panels with factor error structures to construct instruments to estimate structural time series models with endogeneity even after controlling for latent factors. We extend the…
Instrumental variable (IV) methods are central to causal inference from observational data, particularly when a randomized experiment is not feasible. However, of the three conventional core IV identification conditions, only one, IV…
This paper proposes semi-instrumental variables (semi-IVs) as an alternative to instrumental variables (IVs) to identify the causal effect of a binary (or discrete) endogenous treatment. A semi-IV is a less restrictive form of instrument:…
Nonlinear causal effects are prevalent in many research scenarios involving continuous exposures, and instrumental variables (IVs) can be employed to investigate such effects, particularly in the presence of unmeasured confounders. However,…
We introduce a new instrumental variable (IV) estimator for heterogeneous treatment effects in the presence of endogeneity. Our estimator is based on double/debiased machine learning (DML) and uses efficient machine learning instruments…
The technique of data augmentation (DA) is often used in machine learning for regularization purposes to better generalize under i.i.d. settings. In this work, we present a unifying framework with topics in causal inference to make a case…
Causal inference from longitudinal observational data is a challenging problem due to the difficulty in correctly identifying the time-dependent confounders, especially in the presence of latent time-dependent confounders. Instrumental…
Instrumental variables are commonly used to estimate effects of a treatment afflicted by unmeasured confounding, and in practice instruments are often continuous (e.g., measures of distance, or treatment preference). However, available…
Latent confounders are a fundamental challenge for inferring causal effects from observational data. The instrumental variable (IV) approach is a practical way to address this challenge. Existing IV based estimators need a known IV or other…
Unobserved confounding is the main obstacle to causal effect estimation from observational data. Instrumental variables (IVs) are widely used for causal effect estimation when there exist latent confounders. With the standard IV method,…
We show that the popular reinforcement learning (RL) strategy of estimating the state-action value (Q-function) by minimizing the mean squared Bellman error leads to a regression problem with confounding, the inputs and output noise being…
Obtaining valid treatment effect inference remains a challenging problem when dealing with numerous instruments and non-sparse control variables. In this paper, we propose a novel ridge regularization-based instrumental variables method for…
Instrumental variables (IVs) are a popular and powerful tool for estimating causal effects in the presence of unobserved confounding. However, classical approaches rely on strong assumptions such as the $\textit{exclusion criterion}$, which…
In this paper, we discuss causal inference on the efficacy of a treatment or medication on a time-to-event outcome with competing risks. Although the treatment group can be randomized, there can be confoundings between the compliance and…