区分信贷决策中的直接歧视与结构性不平等影响,揭示77%的种族差异由金融中介传递。
Decomposing Discrimination: Causal Mediation Analysis for AI-Driven Credit Decisions
- 用因果中介分析拆解歧视路径,解决保护属性影响中介变量的混淆问题。
- 实证发现77%的种族拒贷差异来自结构性不平等的传导,23%为直接歧视下限。
- 提供开源工具包,适合资源有限的金融机构部署使用。
AI信贷决策中的统计公平性指标混同了两种因果上独立的机制:保护属性直接导致信贷结果的歧视,以及通过合法金融特征传播的结构性不平等。本文基于Pearl的自然直接效应与间接效应框架,在受处理影响的混淆(常见于保护属性同时影响金融中介和最终决策)条件下,提出自然直接与间接效应的识别策略。证明在较弱的修改顺序可忽略假设下,干预性直接与间接效应(IDE/IIE)可识别,并在单调间接处理反应下提供自然效应的保守界。提出双稳健的增广逆概率加权(AIPW)估计器,结合交叉拟合实现半参数效率。通过E值敏感性分析缓解直接路径残余混淆。基于纽约州2022年89,465份常规购房抵押贷款申请的真实数据,发现约77%的7.9个百分点种族拒贷差异通过由结构性不平等塑造的金融中介传播,剩余23%为直接歧视的保守下界。开源的CausalFair Python工具包实现了完整分析流程,供资源受限机构部署。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Statistical fairness metrics in AI-driven credit decisions conflate two causally distinct mechanisms: discrimination operating directly from a protected attribute to a credit outcome, and structural inequality propagating through legitimate financial features. We formalise this distinction using Pearl's framework of natural direct and indirect effects applied to the credit decision setting. Our primary theoretical contribution is an identification strategy for natural direct and indirect effects under treatment-induced confounding -- the prevalent setting in which protected attributes causally affect both financial mediators and the final decision, violating standard sequential ignorability. We show that interventional direct and indirect effects (IDE/IIE) are identified under the weaker Modified Sequential Ignorability assumption, and prove that IDE/IIE provide conservative bounds on the unidentified natural effects under monotone indirect treatment response. We propose a doubly-robust augmented inverse probability weighted (AIPW) estimator for IDE/IIE with semiparametric efficiency properties, implemented via cross-fitting. An E-value sensitivity analysis addresses residual confounding on the direct pathway. Empirical evaluation on 89,465 real HMDA conventional purchase mortgage applications from New York State (2022) demonstrates that approximately 77% of the observed 7.9 percentage-point racial denial disparity operates through financial mediators shaped by structural inequality, while the remaining 23% constitutes a conservative lower bound on direct discrimination. The open-source CausalFair Python package implements the full pipeline for deployment at resource-constrained financial institutions.
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