English
Related papers

Related papers: Exploiting Independent Instruments: Identification…

200 papers

We study a model where one target variable Y is correlated with a vector X:=(X_1,...,X_d) of predictor variables being potential causes of Y. We describe a method that infers to what extent the statistical dependences between X and Y are…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-10-11 Dominik Janzing , Bernhard Schoelkopf

Several problems in statistics involve the combination of high-variance unbiased estimators with low-variance estimators that are only unbiased under strong assumptions. A notable example is the estimation of causal effects while combining…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-05-25 Michael Oberst , Alexander D'Amour , Minmin Chen , Yuyan Wang , David Sontag , Steve Yadlowsky

This work investigates the intersection property of conditional independence. It states that for random variables $A,B,C$ and $X$ we have that $X$ independent of $A$ given $B,C$ and $X$ independent of $B$ given $A,C$ implies $X$ independent…

Probability · Mathematics 2016-08-18 Jonas Peters

Conventional methods in causal effect inferencetypically rely on specifying a valid set of control variables. When this set is unknown or misspecified, inferences will be erroneous. We propose a method for inferring average causal effects…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-06-14 Ludvig Hult , Dave Zachariah

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,…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-12-12 Debo Cheng , Jiuyong Li , Lin Liu , Jiji Zhang , Thuc duy Le , Jixue Liu

Identifying the causal relations between interested variables plays a pivotal role in representation learning as it provides deep insights into the dataset. Identifiability, as the central theme of this approach, normally hinges on…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-08-13 Boyang Sun , Ignavier Ng , Guangyi Chen , Yifan Shen , Qirong Ho , Kun Zhang

This paper studies identification of the effect of a mis-classified, binary, endogenous regressor when a discrete-valued instrumental variable is available. We begin by showing that the only existing point identification result for this…

Econometrics · Economics 2020-11-17 Francis J. DiTraglia , Camilo Garcia-Jimeno

This work extends causal inference with stochastic confounders. We propose a new approach to variational estimation for causal inference based on a representer theorem with a random input space. We estimate causal effects involving latent…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-01-26 Thanh Vinh Vo , Pengfei Wei , Wicher Bergsma , Tze-Yun Leong

Most causal inference methods focus on estimating marginal average treatment effects, but many important causal estimands depend on the joint distribution of potential outcomes, including the probability of causation and proportions…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-10-16 Zach Shahn , David Madigan

Instrumental variables (IVs) are widely used to study the causal effect of an exposure on an outcome in the presence of unmeasured confounding. IVs require an instrument, a variable that is (A1) associated with the exposure, (A2) has no…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-07-30 Hyunseung Kang , Zijian Guo , Zhonghua Liu , Dylan Small

Evaluation of treatment effects and more general estimands is typically achieved via parametric modelling, which is unsatisfactory since model misspecification is likely. Data-adaptive model building (e.g. statistical/machine learning) is…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2022-01-14 Oliver Hines , Oliver Dukes , Karla Diaz-Ordaz , Stijn Vansteelandt

A popular way to estimate the causal effect of a variable x on y from observational data is to use an instrumental variable (IV): a third variable z that affects y only through x. The more strongly z is associated with x, the more reliable…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-04-14 Zhaobin Kuang , Frederic Sala , Nimit Sohoni , Sen Wu , Aldo Córdova-Palomera , Jared Dunnmon , James Priest , Christopher Ré

Missing exposure information is a very common feature of many observational studies. Here we study identifiability and efficient estimation of causal effects on vector outcomes, in such cases where treatment is unconfounded but partially…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-02-04 Edward H. Kennedy

This study introduces a data-driven, machine learning-based method to detect suitable control variables and instruments for assessing the causal effect of a treatment on an outcome in observational data. Our approach tests the joint…

Econometrics · Economics 2026-05-20 Nicolas Apfel , Julia Hatamyar , Martin Huber , Jannis Kueck

We address the problem of causal effect estimation where hidden confounders are present, with a focus on two settings: instrumental variable regression with additional observed confounders, and proxy causal learning. Our approach uses a…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-12 Haotian Sun , Antoine Moulin , Tongzheng Ren , Arthur Gretton , Bo Dai

Empirical researchers are often interested in not only whether a treatment affects an outcome of interest, but also how the treatment effect arises. Causal mediation analysis provides a formal framework to identify causal mechanisms through…

Econometrics · Economics 2022-02-01 Bora Kim

Many statistical estimands of interest (e.g., in regression or causality) are functions of the joint distribution of multiple random variables. But in some applications, data is not available that measures all random variables on each…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-02-11 Yicong Jiang , Lucas Janson

Despite having achieved great success for sentiment analysis, existing neural models struggle with implicit sentiment analysis. This may be due to the fact that they may latch onto spurious correlations ("shortcuts", e.g., focusing only on…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2022-08-22 Siyin Wang , Jie Zhou , Changzhi Sun , Junjie Ye , Tao Gui , Qi Zhang , Xuanjing Huang

Causal discovery is to learn cause-effect relationships among variables given observational data and is important for many applications. Existing causal discovery methods assume data sufficiency, which may not be the case in many real world…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-20 Zijun Cui , Naiyu Yin , Yuru Wang , Qiang Ji

Understanding how much each variable contributes to an outcome is a central question across disciplines. A causal view of explainability is favorable for its ability in uncovering underlying mechanisms and generalizing to new contexts.…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-09 Weihan Zhang , Zijun Gao