提出新框架,评估网络因果推断中暴露映射错误时的效应估计可靠性。
Causal Inference on Networks under Misspecified Exposure Mappings: A Partial Identification Framework
- 通过构建上下界分析暴露映射错误下的因果效应
- 在三种常见暴露设定下得到严格边界,结果可靠
- 适合关注网络干预效果稳健性的研究者使用
在网络因果推断中,每个节点的潜在结果依赖于全网的处理分配。现有方法通常通过暴露映射将网络处理信息压缩为低维总结,但若映射错误,标准直接效应与溢出效应估计会严重偏倚。本文提出一种新的部分识别框架,用于评估暴露映射误设下因果效应的稳健性。具体地,我们推导了在映射误设条件下直接效应和溢出效应的精确上下界。该框架首次将因果敏感性分析应用于暴露映射问题。我们在三种常用暴露设定中实例化该框架:(i) 邻居处理加权均值,(ii) 阈值型暴露映射,(iii) 高阶溢出存在下的截断邻居干扰。此外,我们开发了正交估计量,证明所得边界估计具有有效性、精确性和高效性。实验表明,即使暴露映射误设,边界仍具信息量并能提供可靠结论。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Estimating treatment effects in networks is challenging, as each potential outcome depends on the treatments of all other nodes in the network. To overcome this difficulty, existing methods typically impose an exposure mapping that compresses the treatment assignments in the network into a low-dimensional summary. However, if this mapping is misspecified, standard estimators for direct and spillover effects can be severely biased. We propose a novel partial identification framework for causal inference on networks to assess the robustness of treatment effects under misspecifications of the exposure mapping. Specifically, we derive sharp upper and lower bounds on direct and spillover effects under such misspecifications. As such, our framework presents a novel application of causal sensitivity analysis to exposure mappings. We instantiate our framework for three canonical exposure settings widely used in practice: (i) weighted means of the neighborhood treatments, (ii) threshold-based exposure mappings, and (iii) truncated neighborhood interference in the presence of higher-order spillovers. Furthermore, we develop orthogonal estimators for these bounds and prove that the resulting bound estimates are valid, sharp, and efficient. Our experiments show the bounds remain informative and provide reliable conclusions under misspecification of exposure mappings.
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