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We consider the problem of designing a randomized experiment on a source population to estimate the Average Treatment Effect (ATE) on a target population. We propose a novel approach which explicitly considers the target when designing the…

Methodology · Statistics 2021-09-07 My Phan , David Arbour , Drew Dimmery , Anup B. Rao

This paper proposes a new non-parametric bootstrap method to quantify the uncertainty of average treatment effect estimate for the treated from matching estimators. More specifically, it seeks to quantify the uncertainty associated with the…

Methodology · Statistics 2024-08-21 Jing Li

In causal inference with observational studies, synthetic control (SC) has emerged as a prominent tool. SC has traditionally been applied to aggregate-level datasets, but more recent work has extended its use to individual-level data. As…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-03-28 Saeyoung Rho , Andrew Tang , Noah Bergam , Rachel Cummings , Vishal Misra

Clinical trials face mounting challenges: fragmented patient populations, slow enrollment, and unsustainable costs, particularly for late phase trials in oncology and rare diseases. While external control arms built from real-world data…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-21 Perrine Chassat , Van Tuan Nguyen , Lucas Ducrot , Emilie Lanoy , Agathe Guilloux

The synthetic control method (SCM) estimates causal effects in panel data with a single-treated unit by constructing a counterfactual outcome as a weighted combination of untreated control units that matches the pre-treatment trajectory. In…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-13 Yuxin Wang , Dennis Frauen , Emil Javurek , Konstantin Hess , Yuchen Ma , Stefan Feuerriegel

We present a task-aware approach to synthetic data generation. Our framework employs a trainable synthesizer network that is optimized to produce meaningful training samples by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of a `target' network.…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2019-07-10 Shashank Tripathi , Siddhartha Chandra , Amit Agrawal , Ambrish Tyagi , James M. Rehg , Visesh Chari

Estimation and inference procedures for synthetic control methods often do not allow for the existence of spillover effects, which are plausible in many applications. In this paper, we consider estimation and inference for synthetic control…

Econometrics · Economics 2026-01-23 Jianfei Cao , Connor Dowd

We consider the asymptotic properties of the Synthetic Control (SC) estimator when both the number of pre-treatment periods and control units are large. If potential outcomes follow a linear factor model, we provide conditions under which…

Econometrics · Economics 2020-05-27 Bruno Ferman

Since their introduction in Abadie and Gardeazabal (2003), Synthetic Control (SC) methods have quickly become one of the leading methods for estimating causal effects in observational studies in settings with panel data. Formal discussions…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-07-20 Lea Bottmer , Guido Imbens , Jann Spiess , Merrill Warnick

The usage of medical image data for the training of large-scale machine learning approaches is particularly challenging due to its scarce availability and the costly generation of data annotations, typically requiring the engagement of…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2024-06-26 Joshua Niemeijer , Jan Ehrhardt , Hristina Uzunova , Heinz Handels

Estimating the counterfactual outcome of treatment is essential for decision-making in public health and clinical science, among others. Often, treatments are administered in a sequential, time-varying manner, leading to an exponentially…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-07-16 Shenghao Wu , Wenbin Zhou , Minshuo Chen , Shixiang Zhu

This paper addresses the challenge of overfitting in the learning of dynamical systems by introducing a novel approach for the generation of synthetic data, aimed at enhancing model generalization and robustness in scenarios characterized…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-03-11 Dario Piga , Matteo Rufolo , Gabriele Maroni , Manas Mejari , Marco Forgione

Studies intended to estimate the effect of a treatment, like randomized trials, may not be sampled from the desired target population. To correct for this discrepancy, estimates can be transported to the target population. Methods for…

Recent work has made important contributions in the development of causally-interpretable meta-analysis. These methods transport treatment effects estimated in a collection of randomized trials to a target population of interest. Ideally,…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-02-08 Justin M. Clark , Kollin W. Rott , James S. Hodges , Jared D. Huling

As an alternative to synthetic control, the distributional Synthetic Control (DSC) proposed by Gunsilius (2023) provides estimates for quantile treatment effect and thus enabling researchers to comprehensively understand the impact of…

Econometrics · Economics 2026-05-12 Lu Zhang , Xiaomeng Zhang , Xinyu Zhang

We analyze the synthetic control (SC) method in panel data settings with many units. We assume the treatment assignment is based on unobserved heterogeneity and pre-treatment information, allowing for both strictly and sequentially…

Econometrics · Economics 2023-12-27 Dmitry Arkhangelsky , David Hirshberg

Existing weighting methods for treatment effect estimation are often built upon the idea of propensity scores or covariate balance. They usually impose strong assumptions on treatment assignment or outcome model to obtain unbiased…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-05-09 Dongcheng Zhang , Kunpeng Zhang

In the absence of unobserved confounders, matching and weighting methods are widely used to estimate causal quantities including the Average Treatment Effect on the Treated (ATT). Unfortunately, these methods do not necessarily achieve…

Methodology · Statistics 2016-05-03 Chad Hazlett

Synthetic control (SC) methods are commonly used to estimate the treatment effect on a single treated unit in panel data settings. An SC is a weighted average of control units built to match the treated unit, with weights typically…

Methodology · Statistics 2023-02-21 Xu Shi , Kendrick Li , Wang Miao , Mengtong Hu , Eric Tchetgen Tchetgen

We study hybrid control trials (HCTs), in which a randomized controlled trial (RCT) is augmented with external control patients. Existing approaches for HCTs typically assume conditional exchangeability of the concurrent and external…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-11-21 Alissa Gordon , Emilie Højbjerre-Frandsen , Alejandro Schuler