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Causal effects are often characterized with averages, which can give an incomplete picture of the underlying counterfactual distributions. Here we consider estimating the entire counterfactual density and generic functionals thereof. We…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-02-25 Edward H. Kennedy , Sivaraman Balakrishnan , Larry Wasserman

Counterfactual inference has become a ubiquitous tool in online advertisement, recommendation systems, medical diagnosis, and econometrics. Accurate modeling of outcome distributions associated with different interventions -- known as…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-07-13 Krikamol Muandet , Motonobu Kanagawa , Sorawit Saengkyongam , Sanparith Marukatat

Given additional distributional information in the form of moment restrictions, kernel density and distribution function estimators with implied generalised empirical likelihood probabilities as weights achieve a reduction in variance due…

Methodology · Statistics 2019-10-08 Vitaliy Oryshchenko , Richard J. Smith

Kernel density estimation is a convenient way to estimate the probability density of a distribution given the sample of data points. However, it has certain drawbacks: proper description of the density using narrow kernels needs large data…

Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability · Physics 2015-02-27 Anton Poluektov

We investigate the discrepancy principle for choosing smoothing parameters for kernel density estimation. The method is based on the distance between the empirical and estimated distribution functions. We prove some new positive and…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2015-03-19 Thoralf Mildenberger

We propose a novel framework for conducting causal inference based on counterfactual densities. While the current paradigm of causal inference is mostly focused on estimating average treatment effects (ATEs), which restricts the analysis to…

Econometrics · Economics 2026-04-27 Georg Keilbar , Sonja Greven

This paper provides a general framework for Stein's density method for multivariate continuous distributions. The approach associates to any probability density function a canonical operator and Stein class, as well as an infinite…

Probability · Mathematics 2023-04-27 Guillaume Mijoule , Martin Raič , Gesine Reinert , Yvik Swan

Counterfactual explanations shed light on the decisions of black-box models by explaining how an input can be altered to obtain a favourable decision from the model (e.g., when a loan application has been rejected). However, as noted…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-13 Francesco Leofante , Nico Potyka

Given i.i.d samples from some unknown continuous density on hyper-rectangle $[0, 1]^d$, we attempt to learn a piecewise constant function that approximates this underlying density non-parametrically. Our density estimate is defined on a…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2015-09-24 Kun Yang , Hao Su , Wing Hung Wang

When the performance of a machine learning model varies over groups defined by sensitive attributes (e.g., gender or ethnicity), the performance disparity can be expressed in terms of the probability distributions of the input and output…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2019-05-20 Hao Wang , Berk Ustun , Flavio P. Calmon

Kernel Density Estimation is a very popular technique of approximating a density function from samples. The accuracy is generally well-understood and depends, roughly speaking, on the kernel decay and local smoothness of the true density.…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2019-01-03 Maciej Skorski

Model misspecification can create significant challenges for the implementation of probabilistic models, and this has led to development of a range of robust methods which directly account for this issue. However, whether these more…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-04-22 Oscar Key , Arthur Gretton , François-Xavier Briol , Tamara Fernandez

Assessing the importance of individual features in Machine Learning is critical to understand the model's decision-making process. While numerous methods exist, the lack of a definitive ground truth for comparison highlights the need for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-05 Eddie Conti , Álvaro Parafita , Axel Brando

Estimating the score, i.e., the gradient of log density function, from a set of samples generated by an unknown distribution is a fundamental task in inference and learning of probabilistic models that involve flexible yet intractable…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-07-01 Yuhao Zhou , Jiaxin Shi , Jun Zhu

We propose a framework for analyzing the sensitivity of counterfactuals to parametric assumptions about the distribution of latent variables in structural models. In particular, we derive bounds on counterfactuals as the distribution of…

Econometrics · Economics 2024-03-26 Timothy Christensen , Benjamin Connault

When maximum likelihood estimation is infeasible, one often turns to score matching, contrastive divergence, or minimum probability flow to obtain tractable parameter estimates. We provide a unifying perspective of these techniques as…

Statistics Theory · Mathematics 2022-10-07 Alessandro Barp , Francois-Xavier Briol , Andrew B. Duncan , Mark Girolami , Lester Mackey

The increasing deployment of machine learning as well as legal regulations such as EU's GDPR cause a need for user-friendly explanations of decisions proposed by machine learning models. Counterfactual explanations are considered as one of…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-08-04 André Artelt , Barbara Hammer

Evaluating hypothetical statements about how the world would be had a different course of action been taken is arguably one key capability expected from modern AI systems. Counterfactual reasoning underpins discussions in fairness, the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-04 Kevin Xia , Yushu Pan , Elias Bareinboim

Two-sample inference for the difference of population means typically relies upon a Central Limit Theorem approximation. When data are drawn from a Negative Binomial distribution, previous work of Shilane et al. (2010) showed that a Normal…

Methodology · Statistics 2012-03-06 David Shilane , Derek Bean

Counterfactual prediction methods are required when a model will be deployed in a setting where treatment policies differ from the setting where the model was developed, or when a model provides predictions under hypothetical interventions…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-08-13 Christopher B. Boyer , Issa J. Dahabreh , Jon A. Steingrimsson