English
Related papers

Related papers: Testing Generalizability in Causal Inference

200 papers

This paper develops a Bayesian framework for robust causal inference from longitudinal observational data. Many contemporary methods rely on structural assumptions, such as factor models, to adjust for unobserved confounding, but they can…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-11-20 Angelos Alexopoulos , Nikolaos Demiris

Causal inference is known to be very challenging when only observational data are available. Randomized experiments are often costly and impractical and in instrumental variable regression the number of instruments has to exceed the number…

Methodology · Statistics 2018-06-19 Dominik Rothenhäusler , Peter Bühlmann , Nicolai Meinshausen

Causal inference is a key research area in machine learning, yet confusion reigns over the tools needed to tackle it. There are prevalent claims in the machine learning literature that you need a bespoke causal framework or notation to…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2025-12-30 Bruno Mlodozeniec , David Krueger , Richard E. Turner

Unobserved effect modifiers can induce bias when generalizing causal effect estimates to target populations. In this work, we extend a sensitivity analysis framework assessing the robustness of study results to unobserved effect…

We describe a design-based framework for drawing causal inference in general randomized experiments. Causal effects are defined as linear functionals evaluated at unit-level potential outcome functions. Assumptions about the potential…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-08-15 Christopher Harshaw , Fredrik Sävje , Yitan Wang

In biomedical research, repeated measurements within each subject are often processed to remove artifacts and unwanted sources of variation. The resulting data are used to construct derived outcomes that act as proxies for scientific…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-02-03 Zihang Wang , Razieh Nabi , Benjamin B. Risk

Complex scientific models where the likelihood cannot be evaluated present a challenge for statistical inference. Over the past two decades, a wide range of algorithms have been proposed for learning parameters in computationally feasible…

Computation · Statistics 2021-12-16 Aden Forrow , Ruth E. Baker

Ensuring the generalisability of clinical machine learning (ML) models across diverse healthcare settings remains a significant challenge due to variability in patient demographics, disease prevalence, and institutional practices. Existing…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-04-30 Bradley Segal , Joshua Fieggen , David Clifton , Lei Clifton

A fundamental challenge in causal inference with observational data is correct specification of a causal model. When there is model uncertainty, analysts may seek to use estimates from multiple candidate models that rely on distinct, and…

Methodology · Statistics 2026-03-03 Rohit Bhattacharya , Ina Ocelli , Ted Westling

Compositional generalization-a key open challenge in modern machine learning-requires models to predict unknown combinations of known concepts. However, assessing compositional generalization remains a fundamental challenge due to the lack…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-06 Giacomo Camposampiero , Pietro Barbiero , Michael Hersche , Roger Wattenhofer , Abbas Rahimi

This study examines the generalization ability of algorithm performance prediction models across various benchmark suites. Comparing the statistical similarity between the problem collections with the accuracy of performance prediction…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-05-22 Ana Nikolikj , Ana Kostovska , Gjorgjina Cenikj , Carola Doerr , Tome Eftimov

While witnessing the exceptional success of machine learning (ML) technologies in many applications, users are starting to notice a critical shortcoming of ML: correlation is a poor substitute for causation. The conventional way to discover…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-09-26 Ahmet Kapkiç , Pratanu Mandal , Shu Wan , Paras Sheth , Abhinav Gorantla , Yoonhyuk Choi , Huan Liu , K. Selçuk Candan

Causal inferences from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) may not pertain to a target population where some effect modifiers have a different distribution. Prior work studies generalizing the results of a trial to a target population with…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-06-06 Ilker Demirel , Ahmed Alaa , Anthony Philippakis , David Sontag

The ability to learn and act in novel situations is still a prerogative of animate intelligence, as current machine learning methods mostly fail when moving beyond the standard i.i.d. setting. What is the reason for this discrepancy? Most…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-12-04 Niki Kilbertus , Giambattista Parascandolo , Bernhard Schölkopf

Machine learning has revitalized causal inference by combining flexible models and principled estimators, yet robust benchmarking and evaluation remain challenging with real-world data. In this work, we introduce frengression, a deep…

Methodology · Statistics 2025-08-05 Linying Yang , Robin J. Evans , Xinwei Shen

Estimating causal effects from observational network data is a significant but challenging problem. Existing works in causal inference for observational network data lack an analysis of the generalization bound, which can theoretically…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-08-09 Ruichu Cai , Zeqin Yang , Weilin Chen , Yuguang Yan , Zhifeng Hao

We develop new methods to integrate experimental and observational data in causal inference. While randomized controlled trials offer strong internal validity, they are often costly and therefore limited in sample size. Observational data,…

Econometrics · Economics 2025-11-04 Xuelin Yang , Licong Lin , Susan Athey , Michael I. Jordan , Guido W. Imbens

Causal machine learning has the potential to revolutionize decision-making by combining the predictive power of machine learning algorithms with the theory of causal inference. However, these methods remain underutilized by the broader…

Meta-analysis, by synthesizing effect estimates from multiple studies conducted in diverse settings, stands at the top of the evidence hierarchy in clinical research. Yet, conventional approaches based on fixed- or random-effects models…

Generalization is at the core of machine learning models. However, the definition of generalization is not entirely clear. We employ set theory to introduce the concepts of algorithms, hypotheses, and dataset generalization. We analyze the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-11-14 Shiqi Liu