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Related papers: Bounding Counterfactuals under Selection Bias

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The unit selection problem aims to identify a set of individuals who are most likely to exhibit a desired mode of behavior, for example, selecting individuals who would respond one way if encouraged and a different way if not encouraged.…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2021-09-17 Ang Li , Judea Pearl

Large-scale datasets are increasingly being used to inform decision making. While this effort aims to ground policy in real-world evidence, challenges have arisen as selection bias and other forms of distribution shifts often plague…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-11-07 Santiago Cortes-Gomez , Mateo Dulce , Carlos Patino , Bryan Wilder

Conditioning on some set of confounders that causally affect both treatment and outcome variables can be sufficient for eliminating bias introduced by all such confounders when estimating causal effect of the treatment on the outcome from…

Methodology · Statistics 2018-04-24 Priyantha Wijayatunga

In this work, we propose an approach for assessing sensitivity to unobserved confounding in studies with multiple outcomes. We demonstrate how prior knowledge unique to the multi-outcome setting can be leveraged to strengthen causal…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-01-26 Jiajing Zheng , Jiaxi Wu , Alexander D'Amour , Alexander Franks

When causal quantities cannot be point identified, researchers often pursue partial identification to quantify the range of possible values. However, the peculiarities of applied research conditions can make this analytically intractable.…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-09-29 Guilherme Duarte , Noam Finkelstein , Dean Knox , Jonathan Mummolo , Ilya Shpitser

Bayesian optimization is a coherent, ubiquitous approach to decision-making under uncertainty, with applications including multi-arm bandits, active learning, and black-box optimization. Bayesian optimization selects decisions (i.e.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-13 Samuel Stanton , Wesley Maddox , Andrew Gordon Wilson

We develop a general theory of omitted variable bias for a wide range of common causal parameters, including (but not limited to) averages of potential outcomes, average treatment effects, average causal derivatives, and policy effects from…

Econometrics · Economics 2024-05-28 Victor Chernozhukov , Carlos Cinelli , Whitney Newey , Amit Sharma , Vasilis Syrgkanis

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

Causal effect estimation from observational data is a crucial but challenging task. Currently, only a limited number of data-driven causal effect estimation methods are available. These methods either provide only a bound estimation of the…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-11-10 Debo Cheng , Jiuyong Li , Lin Liu , Kui Yu , Thuc Duy Lee , Jixue Liu

Selection bias is pervasive in observational studies. For example, large scale biobanks data can exhibit ``healthy volunteer bias'' when respondents are healthier and of higher socio-economic status than the population they are meant to…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-05-14 Yiwen Qiu , Filip Kovacevic , Shimeng Huang , Peter Spirtes , Francesco Locatello

Confounding bias, missing data, and selection bias are three common obstacles to valid causal inference in the data sciences. Covariate adjustment is the most pervasive technique for recovering casual effects from confounding bias. In this…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-09-17 Mojdeh Saadati , Jin Tian

This paper discusses the problem of causal query in observational data with hidden variables, with the aim of seeking the change of an outcome when "manipulating" a variable while given a set of plausible confounding variables which affect…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-11-25 Debo Cheng , Jiuyong Li , Lin Liu , Jixue Liu , Kui Yu , Thuc Duy Le

Selection bias, arising from the systematic inclusion or exclusion of certain samples, poses a significant challenge to the validity of causal inference. While Bareinboim et al. introduced methods for recovering unbiased observational and…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-06-05 Jingyang He , Shuai Wang , Ang Li

How do we learn from biased data? Historical datasets often reflect historical prejudices; sensitive or protected attributes may affect the observed treatments and outcomes. Classification algorithms tasked with predicting outcomes…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-12-04 David Madras , Elliot Creager , Toniann Pitassi , Richard Zemel

Identifying covariates that modify treatment effects is a central problem in causal inference. Yet existing data-adaptive procedures do not provide finite-sample control over the expected number of false discoveries, risking spurious…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-05-12 Falco J. Bargagli-Stoffi , Omar Melikechi

Unaided human decision making appears to systematically violate consistency constraints imposed by normative theories; these biases in turn appear to justify the application of formal decision-analytic models. It is argued that both claims…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2013-04-08 Marvin S. Cohen

A fundamental task in science is to determine the underlying causal relations because it is the knowledge of this functional structure what leads to the correct interpretation of an effect given the apparent associations in the observed…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-08-02 Alexandre Trilla , Nenad Mijatovic

Machine Learning explainability techniques have been proposed as a means of `explaining' or interrogating a model in order to understand why a particular decision or prediction has been made. Such an ability is especially important at a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-02-28 Matthew J. Vowels

Causal inference is made challenging by confounding, selection bias, and other complications. A common approach to addressing these difficulties is the inclusion of auxiliary data on the superpopulation of interest. Such data may measure a…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-04-16 Jaron J. R. Lee , AmirEmad Ghassami , Ilya Shpitser

This paper proposes the use of causal modeling to detect and mitigate algorithmic bias. We provide a brief description of causal modeling and a general overview of our approach. We then use the Adult dataset, which is available for download…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-10 Wendy Hui , Wai Kwong Lau