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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

Discovering the underlying dynamics of complex systems from data is an important practical topic. Constrained optimization algorithms are widely utilized and lead to many successes. Yet, such purely data-driven methods may bring about…

Dynamical Systems · Mathematics 2023-05-17 Nan Chen , Yinling Zhang

We consider the problem of structure learning for linear causal models based on observational data. We treat models given by possibly cyclic mixed graphs, which allow for feedback loops and effects of latent confounders. Generalizing…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2020-08-21 Carlos Améndola , Philipp Dettling , Mathias Drton , Federica Onori , Jun Wu

Causal discovery is the subfield of causal inference concerned with estimating the structure of cause-and-effect relationships in a system of interrelated variables, as opposed to quantifying the strength or describing the form of causal…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-26 Rebecca F. Supple , Hannah Worthington , Ben Swallow

Most existing causal discovery methods rely on the assumption of no latent confounders, limiting their applicability in solving real-life problems. In this paper, we introduce a novel, versatile framework for causal discovery that…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-19 Xinshuai Dong , Biwei Huang , Ignavier Ng , Xiangchen Song , Yujia Zheng , Songyao Jin , Roberto Legaspi , Peter Spirtes , Kun Zhang

Causal discovery methods such as LiNGAM identify causal structure from observational data by assuming mutually independent disturbances. This assumption is fragile: shared volatility, common scale effects, or other forms of dependence can…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-05-07 Geert Mesters , Alvaro Ribot , Anna Seigal , Piotr Zwiernik

Causal discovery is challenging in general dynamical systems because, without strong structural assumptions, the underlying causal graph may not be identifiable even from interventional data. However, many real-world systems exhibit…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-07 Panayiotis Panayiotou , Özgür Şimşek

Many of the causal discovery methods rely on the faithfulness assumption to guarantee asymptotic correctness. However, the assumption can be approximately violated in many ways, leading to sub-optimal solutions. Although there is a line of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-01-19 Ignavier Ng , Yujia Zheng , Jiji Zhang , Kun Zhang

Learning high-level causal representations together with a causal model from unstructured low-level data such as pixels is impossible from observational data alone. We prove under mild assumptions that this representation is however…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-10-12 Johann Brehmer , Pim de Haan , Phillip Lippe , Taco Cohen

Learning causality from observational data has received increasing interest across various scientific fields. However, most existing methods assume the absence of latent confounders and restrict the underlying causal graph to be acyclic,…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-11-18 Wei Jin , Lang Lang , Amanda B. Spence , Leah H. Rubin , Yanxun Xu

A structural causal model is made of endogenous (manifest) and exogenous (latent) variables. We show that endogenous observations induce linear constraints on the probabilities of the exogenous variables. This allows to exactly map a causal…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-08-04 Marco Zaffalon , Alessandro Antonucci , Rafael Cabañas

Causal discovery in the presence of unobserved common causes from observational data only is a crucial but challenging problem. We categorize all possible causal relationships between two random variables into the following four categories…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-03-12 Masatoshi Kobayashi , Kohei Miyagichi , Shin Matsushima

Causal inference relies on the untestable assumption of no unmeasured confounding. Sensitivity analysis can be used to quantify the impact of unmeasured confounding on causal estimates. Among sensitivity analysis methods proposed in the…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-12 Yushu Zou , Liangyuan Hu , Amanda Ricciuto , Mark Deneau , Kuan Liu

Owing to the cross-pollination between causal discovery and deep learning, non-statistical data (e.g., images, text, etc.) encounters significant conflicts in terms of properties and methods with traditional causal data. To unify these data…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-14 Hang Chen , Xinyu Yang , Qing Yang

Most causal discovery algorithms find causal structure among a set of observed variables. Learning the causal structure among latent variables remains an important open problem, particularly when using high-dimensional data. In this paper,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-09-09 Jonathan D. Young , Bryan Andrews , Gregory F. Cooper , Xinghua Lu

Causality plays a pivotal role in various fields of study. Based on the framework of causal graphical models, previous works have proposed identifying whether a variable is a cause or non-cause of a target in every Markov equivalent graph…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-08-16 Qingyuan Zheng , Yue Liu , Yangbo He

We propose an approach for learning the causal structure in stochastic dynamical systems with a $1$-step functional dependency in the presence of latent variables. We propose an information-theoretic approach that allows us to recover the…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2017-01-25 Saber Salehkaleybar , Jalal Etesami , Negar Kiyavash

We study the problem of reconstructing a causal graphical model from data in the presence of latent variables. The main problem of interest is recovering the causal structure over the latent variables while allowing for general, potentially…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-11-23 Bohdan Kivva , Goutham Rajendran , Pradeep Ravikumar , Bryon Aragam

The problem of inferring the direct causal parents of a response variable among a large set of explanatory variables is of high practical importance in many disciplines. Recent work exploits stability of regression coefficients or…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-07-07 Anant Raj , Luigi Gresele , Michel Besserve , Bernhard Schölkopf , Stefan Bauer

In the univariate case, we show that by comparing the individual complexities of univariate cause and effect, one can identify the cause and the effect, without considering their interaction at all. In our framework, complexities are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-02-25 Tomer Galanti , Ofir Nabati , Lior Wolf