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Causal inference is a critical research topic across many domains, such as statistics, computer science, education, public policy and economics, for decades. Nowadays, estimating causal effect from observational data has become an appealing…

Methodology · Statistics 2020-02-10 Liuyi Yao , Zhixuan Chu , Sheng Li , Yaliang Li , Jing Gao , Aidong Zhang

A fundamental limitation of causal inference in observational studies is that perceived evidence for an effect might instead be explained by factors not accounted for in the primary analysis. Methods for assessing the sensitivity of a…

Methodology · Statistics 2018-09-14 Colin B. Fogarty

In randomized experiments, interactions between units might generate a treatment diffusion process. This is common when the treatment of interest is an actual object or product that can be shared among peers (e.g., flyers, booklets,…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-09-17 Costanza Tortú , Irene Crimaldi , Fabrizia Mealli , Laura Forastiere

Externally controlled trials are crucial in clinical development when randomized controlled trials are unethical or impractical. These trials consist of a full treatment arm with the experimental treatment and a full external control arm.…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-03-11 Chenyin Gao , Xiang Zhang , Shu Yang

Off-policy evaluation of sequential decision policies from observational data is necessary in applications of batch reinforcement learning such as education and healthcare. In such settings, however, unobserved variables confound observed…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-07-14 Nathan Kallus , Angela Zhou

Causal inference in observational studies can be challenging when confounders are subject to missingness. Generally, the identification of causal effects is not guaranteed even under restrictive parametric model assumptions when confounders…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-03-23 Jian Sun , Bo Fu

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

Estimating causal effects under interference, where the stable unit treatment value assumption is violated, is critical in fields such as regional and public economics. Much of the existing research on causal inference under interference…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-02-03 Akihiro Sato , Shonosuke Sugasawa

Causal inference is only valid when its underlying assumptions are satisfied, one of the most central being the ignorability or unconfoundedness assumption. However, this hypothesis is often unrealistic in observational studies, as some…

This paper develops a class of potential outcomes models characterized by three main features: (i) Unobserved heterogeneity can be represented by a vector of potential outcomes and a type describing the manner in which an instrument…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-10-10 Manu Navjeevan , Rodrigo Pinto , Andres Santos

Unmeasured confounding and selection bias are often of concern in observational studies and may invalidate a causal analysis if not appropriately accounted for. Under outcome-dependent sampling, a latent factor that has causal effects on…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-08-03 Kendrick Qijun Li , Xu Shi , Wang Miao , Eric Tchetgen Tchetgen

This paper provides a nonparametric framework for causal inference with categorical outcomes under binary treatment and binary instrument settings. I decompose the observed joint probability of outcomes and treatment into marginal…

Econometrics · Economics 2025-11-11 Onil Boussim

This paper provides a solution to the evaluation of treatment effects in selective samples when neither instruments nor parametric assumptions are available. We provide sharp bounds for average treatment effects under a conditional…

Econometrics · Economics 2024-12-17 Phillip Heiler , Asbjørn Kaufmann , Bezirgen Veliyev

While probabilistic models describe the dependence structure between observed variables, causal models go one step further: they predict, for example, how cognitive functions are affected by external interventions that perturb neuronal…

Neurons and Cognition · Quantitative Biology 2021-04-12 Sebastian Weichwald , Jonas Peters

In modern large-scale observational studies, data collection constraints often result in partially labeled datasets, posing challenges for reliable causal inference, especially due to potential labeling bias and relatively small size of the…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-04-22 Yuqian Zhang , Abhishek Chakrabortty , Jelena Bradic

We study estimation and inference for heterogeneous principal causal effects with binary treatments and binary intermediate variables. Principal causal effects are subgroup effects within strata defined by potential values of an…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-11 Rui Zhang , Charles R. Doss , Jared D. Huling

Clustered observations are ubiquitous in controlled and observational studies and arise naturally in multi-centre trials or longitudinal surveys. We present a novel model for the analysis of clustered observations where the marginal…

Methodology · Statistics 2022-11-03 Luisa Barbanti , Torsten Hothorn

Background: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are costly, time-consuming, and often infeasible, while treatment-effect estimation from observational data is limited by unobserved confounding. Methods: We developed a three-step framework…

If $X,Y,Z$ denote sets of random variables, two different data sources may contain samples from $P_{X,Y}$ and $P_{Y,Z}$, respectively. We argue that causal discovery can help inferring properties of the `unobserved joint distributions'…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2023-05-12 Dominik Janzing , Philipp M. Faller , Leena Chennuru Vankadara

If $X,Y,Z$ denote sets of random variables, two different data sources may contain samples from $P_{X,Y}$ and $P_{Y,Z}$, respectively. We argue that causal inference can help inferring properties of the 'unobserved joint distributions'…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2018-05-18 Dominik Janzing