基于图不确定性的因果推断新方法,提升处理效应估计的可靠性。
CausalGuard: Conformal Inference under Graph Uncertainty

- 用图条件双重稳健伪结果加权聚合,结合贝叶斯信息准则重加权候选图
- 在五个基准上实现超90%覆盖度,且比无图基线更窄区间
- 适合处理因果图未知或有误的情况,尤其适用于高可靠性要求场景
从观测数据中估计处理效应需选择调整集,但有效调整依赖未知的因果图。图误设会导致覆盖不足,而无图依赖的置信包装器仅通过大幅填充才能恢复名义覆盖。我们提出CausalGuard,一种结构加权的置信推断框架,通过聚合图条件双重稳健伪结果进行校准。候选DAG由大语言模型生成的边先验提出,经条件独立性检验剪枝,并用贝叶斯信息准则重加权。复合非符合性得分对后验加权伪结果进行校准。CausalGuard为该聚合伪结果提供分布无关的有限样本边际覆盖;在因果可识别、重叠性、条件均值扰动稳定及目标对齐有效调整策略集中,其条件均值收敛于真实条件平均处理效应。在五个基准测试中,CausalGuard对可直接评估的目标实现了平均覆盖超过名义90%水平,且当图无关基线需要大量填充时,区间宽度更小。压力测试显示,它能抑制无效共因调整,在保留候选集由数据支持时,即使先验误设仍保持稳定。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Estimating treatment effects from observational data requires choosing an adjustment set, but valid adjustment depends on an unknown causal graph. Graph misspecification can cause under-coverage, while graph-agnostic conformal wrappers may regain nominal coverage only through large padding. We introduce CausalGuard, a structure-weighted conformal framework that calibrates after aggregating graph-conditional doubly robust pseudo-outcomes. Candidate DAGs are proposed from an LLM-derived edge prior, pruned by conditional-independence tests, and reweighted by Bayesian Information Criterion. A composite nonconformity score then calibrates the posterior-weighted pseudo-outcome. CausalGuard provides distribution-free finite-sample marginal coverage for this aggregated pseudo-outcome; under causal identification, overlap, conditional-mean nuisance stability, and concentration on target-aligned valid adjustment strategies, its conditional mean converges to the true Conditional Average Treatment Effect. Across five benchmarks, CausalGuard attains mean coverage above the nominal 90% level for the directly evaluable target and reduces width when graph-agnostic conformal baselines require large padding. Stress tests show that CausalGuard suppresses invalid collider adjustment and remains stable under misspecified priors when the retained candidate set is data-supported.
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