English
Related papers

Related papers: Assessing Omitted Variable Bias when the Controls …

200 papers

Causal inference with observational studies often suffers from unmeasured confounding, yielding biased estimators based on the unconfoundedness assumption. Sensitivity analysis assesses how the causal conclusions change with respect to…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-04-01 Sizhu Lu , Peng Ding

Covariate benchmarking is an important part of sensitivity analysis about omitted variable bias and can be used to bound the strength of the unobserved confounder using information and judgments about observed covariates. It is common to…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-06-21 Deepankar Basu

Recently, interest has grown in the use of proxy variables of unobserved confounding for inferring the causal effect in the presence of unmeasured confounders from observational data. One difficulty inhibiting the practical use is finding…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-28 Feng Xie , Zhengming Chen , Shanshan Luo , Wang Miao , Ruichu Cai , Zhi Geng

Selection bias arises when the probability that an observation enters a dataset depends on variables related to the quantities of interest, leading to systematic distortions in estimation and uncertainty quantification. For example, in…

The finite sensitivity of instruments or detection methods means that data sets in many areas of astronomy, for example cosmological or exoplanet surveys, are necessarily systematically incomplete. Such data sets, where the population being…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2020-10-14 Adam B. Mantz

Sensitivity analysis is widely used to assess the robustness of causal conclusions in observational studies, yet its interaction with the structure of measured covariates is often overlooked. When latent confounders cannot be directly…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-02-17 Abhinandan Dalal , Iris Horng , Yang Feng , Dylan S. Small

In observational studies, it is typically unrealistic to assume that treatments are randomly assigned, even conditional on adjusting for all observed covariates. Therefore, a sensitivity analysis is often needed to examine how hidden biases…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-05-18 Siyu Heng , Dylan S. Small

Certain causal models involving unmeasured variables induce no independence constraints among the observed variables but imply, nevertheless, inequality contraints on the observed distribution. This paper derives a general formula for such…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-02-21 Judea Pearl

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

When decision-makers can directly intervene, policy evaluation algorithms give valid causal estimates. In off-policy evaluation (OPE), there may exist unobserved variables that both impact the dynamics and are used by the unknown behavior…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-04-05 David Bruns-Smith

We study conditions under which the addition of variables to a regression equation can turn a previously statistically insignificant result into a significant one. Specifically, we characterize the minimum strength of association required…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2025-09-24 Danielle Tsao , Ronan Perry , Carlos Cinelli

We consider the estimation of average treatment effects in observational studies and propose a new framework of robust causal inference with unobserved confounders. Our approach is based on distributionally robust optimization and proceeds…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-02-06 Dimitris Bertsimas , Kosuke Imai , Michael Lingzhi Li

Causal inference necessarily relies upon untestable assumptions; hence, it is crucial to assess the robustness of obtained results to violations of identification assumptions. However, such sensitivity analysis is only occasionally…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-05-19 Tobias Freidling , Qingyuan Zhao

Causality lays the foundation for the trajectory of our world. Causal inference (CI), which aims to infer intrinsic causal relations among variables of interest, has emerged as a crucial research topic. Nevertheless, the lack of observation…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-06-21 Yaochen Zhu , Yinhan He , Jing Ma , Mengxuan Hu , Sheng Li , Jundong Li

Predictive algorithms inform consequential decisions in settings with selective labels: outcomes are observed only for units selected by past decision makers. This creates an identification problem under unobserved confounding -- when…

Econometrics · Economics 2025-11-07 Ashesh Rambachan , Amanda Coston , Edward Kennedy

Instrumental variable regression is a common approach for causal inference in the presence of unobserved confounding. However, identifying valid instruments is often difficult in practice. In this paper, we propose a novel method based on…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-01-22 Gregor Steiner , Jeremie Houssineau , Mark F. J. Steel

Can stated preferences inform counterfactual analyses of actual choice? This research proposes a novel approach to researchers who have access to both stated choices in hypothetical scenarios and actual choices, matched or unmatched. The…

Econometrics · Economics 2025-11-18 Romuald Meango , Marc Henry , Ismael Mourifie

Outcome Reporting Bias (ORB) poses significant threats to the validity of meta-analytic findings. It occurs when researchers selectively report outcomes based on the significance or direction of results, potentially leading to distorted…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-07-17 Alessandra Gaia Saracini , Leonhard Held

Proxy variables are commonly used in causal inference when unmeasured confounding exists. While most existing proximal methods assume a unidirectional causal relationship between two primary variables, many social and biological systems…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-07-21 Jiaqi Min , Xueyue Zhang , Shanshan Luo

We study identification and estimation of endogenous linear and nonlinear regression models without excluded instrumental variables, based on the standard mean independence condition and a nonlinear relevance condition. Based on the…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-08-01 Wayne Yuan Gao , Rui Wang