identification and estimation
Identification and Estimation of Joint Probabilitiesof Potential Outcomes in Observational Studies with Covariate Information
However, because they are not identifiable without any assumptions, various assumptions have been utilized to evaluate the joint probabilities of potential outcomes, e.g., the assumption of monotonicity (Pearl, 2009; Tian and Pearl, 2000), the independence between potential outcomes (Robins and Richardson, 2011), the condition of gain equality (Li and Pearl, 2019), and the specific functional relationshipsbetween cause and effect (Pearl, 2009). Unlike existing identification conditions, in order to evaluate the joint probabilities of potential outcomeswithoutsuch assumptions,this paper proposestwo types of novel identification conditions using covariate information. In addition, when the joint probabilities of potential outcomes are identifiable through the proposed conditions, the estimation problem of the joint probabilities of potential outcomes reduces to that of singular models and thus they can not be evaluated by standard statistical estimation methods. To solve the problem,this paper proposes a new statisticalestimationmethod based on the augmented Lagrangianmethod and shows the asymptoticnormality of the proposed estimators. Given space constraints, the proofs, the details on the statistical estimationmethod, some numerical experiments, and the case study are provided in the supplementary material.
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Identification and Estimation under Multiple Versions of Treatment: Mixture-of-Experts Approach
Yoshikawa, Kohei, Kawano, Shuichi
Identification and Estimation under Multiple Versions of Treatment: Mixture-of-Experts Approach Kohei Y oshikawa Shuichi Kawano January 5, 2026 Abstract The Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption (SUTV A) includes the condition that there are no multiple versions of treatment in causal inference. Though we could not control the implementation of treatment in observational studies, multiple versions may exist in the treatment. It has been pointed out that ignoring such multiple versions of treatment can lead to biased estimates of causal effects, but a causal inference framework that explicitly deals with the unbiased identification and estimation of version-specific causal effects has not been fully developed yet. Thus, obtaining a deeper understanding for mechanisms of the complex treatments is difficult. In this paper, we introduce the Mixture-of-Experts framework into causal inference and develop a methodology for estimating the causal effects of latent versions. This approach enables explicit estimation of version-specific causal effects even if the versions are not observed. Numerical experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. Keywords causal inference multiple versions of treatment compound treatments mixture-of-experts EM algorithm 1 Introduction In the theory of causal inference, a fundamental starting point is the potential outcomes framework since Rubin (1980), whose core assumption is the Stable Unit Treatment Value Assumption (SUTV A).
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Identification and Estimation of Joint Probabilities of Potential Outcomes in Observational Studies with Covariate Information
The joint probabilities of potential outcomes are fundamental components of causal inference in the sense that (i) if they are identifiable, then the causal risk is also identifiable, but not vise versa (Pearl, 2009; Tian and Pearl, 2000) and (ii) they enable us to evaluate the probabilistic aspects of sufficiency'', and ``necessity and sufficiency'', which are important concepts of successful explanation (Watson, et al., 2020). However, because they are not identifiable without any assumptions, various assumptions have been utilized to evaluate the joint probabilities of potential outcomes, e.g., the assumption of monotonicity (Pearl, 2009; Tian and Pearl, 2000), the independence between potential outcomes (Robins and Richardson, 2011), the condition of gain equality (Li and Pearl, 2019), and the specific functional relationships between cause and effect (Pearl, 2009). Unlike existing identification conditions, in order to evaluate the joint probabilities of potential outcomes without such assumptions, this paper proposes two types of novel identification conditions using covariate information. In addition, when the joint probabilities of potential outcomes are identifiable through the proposed conditions, the estimation problem of the joint probabilities of potential outcomes reduces to that of singular models and thus they can not be evaluated by standard statistical estimation methods. To solve the problem, this paper proposes a new statistical estimation method based on the augmented Lagrangian method and shows the asymptotic normality of the proposed estimators. Given space constraints, the proofs, the details on the statistical estimation method, some numerical experiments, and the case study are provided in the supplementary material.
Identification and Estimation of Causal Effects from Dependent Data
The assumption that data samples are independent and identically distributed (iid) is standard in many areas of statistics and machine learning. Nevertheless, in some settings, such as social networks, infectious disease modeling, and reasoning with spatial and temporal data, this assumption is false. An extensive literature exists on making causal inferences under the iid assumption [12, 8, 21, 16], but, as pointed out in [14], causal inference in non-iid contexts is challenging due to the combination of unobserved confounding bias and data dependence. In this paper we develop a general theory describing when causal inferences are possible in such scenarios. We use segregated graphs [15], a generalization of latent projection mixed graphs [23], to represent causal models of this type and provide a complete algorithm for non-parametric identification in these models. We then demonstrate how statistical inferences may be performed on causal parameters identified by this algorithm, even in cases where parts of the model exhibit full interference, meaning only a single sample is available for parts of the model [19]. We apply these techniques to a synthetic data set which considers the adoption of fake news articles given the social network structure, articles read by each person, and baseline demographics and socioeconomic covariates.
Identification and Estimation of the Bi-Directional MR with Some Invalid Instruments
We consider the challenging problem of estimating causal effects from purely observational data in the bi-directional Mendelian randomization (MR), where some invalid instruments, as well as unmeasured confounding, usually exist. To address this problem, most existing methods attempt to find proper valid instrumental variables (IVs) for the target causal effect by expert knowledge or by assuming that the causal model is a one-directional MR model. As such, in this paper, we first theoretically investigate the identification of the bi-directional MR from observational data. In particular, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions under which valid IV sets are correctly identified such that the bi-directional MR model is identifiable, including the causal directions of a pair of phenotypes (i.e., the treatment and outcome).Moreover, based on the identification theory, we develop a cluster fusion-like method to discover valid IV sets and estimate the causal effects of interest.We theoretically demonstrate the correctness of the proposed algorithm.Experimental results show the effectiveness of our method for estimating causal effects in both one-directional and bi-directional MR models.
Identification and Estimation of Joint Probabilities of Potential Outcomes in Observational Studies with Covariate Information
The joint probabilities of potential outcomes are fundamental components of causal inference in the sense that (i) if they are identifiable, then the causal risk is also identifiable, but not vise versa (Pearl, 2009; Tian and Pearl, 2000) and (ii) they enable us to evaluate the probabilistic aspects of necessity'',sufficiency'', and necessity and sufficiency'', which are important concepts of successful explanation (Watson, et al., 2020). However, because they are not identifiable without any assumptions, various assumptions have been utilized to evaluate the joint probabilities of potential outcomes, e.g., the assumption of monotonicity (Pearl, 2009; Tian and Pearl, 2000), the independence between potential outcomes (Robins and Richardson, 2011), the condition of gain equality (Li and Pearl, 2019), and the specific functional relationships between cause and effect (Pearl, 2009). Unlike existing identification conditions, in order to evaluate the joint probabilities of potential outcomes without such assumptions, this paper proposes two types of novel identification conditions using covariate information. In addition, when the joint probabilities of potential outcomes are identifiable through the proposed conditions, the estimation problem of the joint probabilities of potential outcomes reduces to that of singular models and thus they can not be evaluated by standard statistical estimation methods. To solve the problem, this paper proposes a new statistical estimation method based on the augmented Lagrangian method and shows the asymptotic normality of the proposed estimators. Given space constraints, the proofs, the details on the statistical estimation method, some numerical experiments, and the case study are provided in the supplementary material.
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Reviews: Identification and Estimation of Causal Effects from Dependent Data
The work presented in the paper is clearly of value. The existing theory for identification and estimation of causal parameters in DAGs for IID data has been central to our understanding of causal inference, and developing analogous results for data under interference would be useful both to apply directly to data in which we know interference occurs and to better understand the potential impacts of violations of the IID assumption. While the paper should be accepted, the current version could be substantially improved in both organization and in its discussion of several key issues, including generality, assumptions, temporal effects, and prior work. Organization and Presentation Some aspects of the organization make the paper challenging for readers. Some sections do not provide a "roadmap" to the basic logic before plunging into the details, others do not present a high-level intuition for why a given theoretical result is being presented, The entire paper would be substantially improved if the authors provided readers with a high-level roadmap to the overall reasoning of the paper, making clear the basic logic that allows an identification theory to be developed under interference (before plunging into the details of sections 2 and 3). As I understand it, the outline of that logic is: 1) Represent models as latent variable chain graphs, 2) Divide the model into blocks, 3) Assume no interference between blocks, 4) Express identification theory by using truncated nested factorization of latent projection ADMGs.
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Identification and Estimation of Conditional Average Partial Causal Effects via Instrumental Variable
Kawakami, Yuta, Kuroki, Manabu, Tian, Jin
There has been considerable recent interest in estimating heterogeneous causal effects. In this paper, we introduce conditional average partial causal effects (CAPCE) to reveal the heterogeneity of causal effects with continuous treatment. We provide conditions for identifying CAPCE in an instrumental variable setting. We develop three families of CAPCE estimators: sieve, parametric, and reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS)-based, and analyze their statistical properties. We illustrate the proposed CAPCE estimators on synthetic and real-world data.
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Identification and Estimation of Causal Effects from Dependent Data
The assumption that data samples are independent and identically distributed (iid) is standard in many areas of statistics and machine learning. Nevertheless, in some settings, such as social networks, infectious disease modeling, and reasoning with spatial and temporal data, this assumption is false. An extensive literature exists on making causal inferences under the iid assumption [12, 8, 21, 16], but, as pointed out in [14], causal inference in non-iid contexts is challenging due to the combination of unobserved confounding bias and data dependence. In this paper we develop a general theory describing when causal inferences are possible in such scenarios. We use segregated graphs [15], a generalization of latent projection mixed graphs [23], to represent causal models of this type and provide a complete algorithm for non-parametric identification in these models.
DoWhy – A library for causal inference - Microsoft Research
For decades, causal inference methods have found wide applicability in the social and biomedical sciences. As computing systems start intervening in our work and daily lives, questions of cause-and-effect are gaining importance in computer science as well. To enable widespread use of causal inference, we are pleased to announce a new software library, DoWhy. Its name is inspired by Judea Pearl's do-calculus for causal inference. In addition to providing a programmatic interface for popular causal inference methods, DoWhy is designed to highlight the critical but often neglected assumptions underlying causal inference analyses.