CLOUD method detects causal relationships in various data types without latent variable assumptions.
problem Detecting causal relationships in the presence of unobserved common causes.
method CLOUD method using Normalized Maximum Likelihood (NML) Code for various data types (discrete, mixed, continuous).
result CLOUD method is more effective than existing methods in inferring causal relationships.
This work restricts hidden cardinality in causal models to infer causal relations.
problem Causal relations between variables with a common unobserved cause cannot be directly inferred.
method Derive inequality constraints from d-separation in causal models with known cardinalities of unobserved variables.
result Inference of causal relations is possible with additional assumptions about cardinalities.
New method identifies causal effects with categorical unobserved confounders.
problem Estimating causal effects in the presence of unobserved confounders.
method Mixture learning and tensor decomposition for consistent estimation.
result Causal effects are identifiable with categorical unobserved confounders under suitable conditions.
Study tackles causal structure learning in linear models with unobserved variables and measurement error.
problem Challenges of unobserved common causes and measurement error in causal structure learning.
method Introduces LV-SEM-ME model with four types of variables and characterizes identifiability under separability condition.
result Establishes form of identification robustness for target effect in broader LV-SEM-ME model.
Unobserved confounding is a major hurdle for causal inference from observational data. Confounders---the variables that affect both the causes and the outcome---induce spurious non-causal correlations between the two. Wang & Blei (2018) lower this hurdle with "the blessings of multiple causes," where the correlation st…
We tackle causal discovery in linear systems with measurement error and unobserved causes.
problem Causal discovery in linear systems with measurement error and unobserved causes.
method Characterization of identifiability based on the mixing matrix, proposing causal structure learning methods.
result The structure of causal models can be identified under certain faithfulness assumptions.
Paper proposes methods to discover causal models with unobserved variables.
problem Discovering causal relationships in data with unobserved variables.
method Two methods leveraging prior knowledge for causal discovery in CAM-UV models.
result Accuracy of causal discovery improves with more prior knowledge.
New method identifies common cause in causal insufficiency, revealing complex phase transitions.
problem Identifying common cause in causal insufficiency with observed joint probability.
method Generalized maximum likelihood method, closely related to maximum entropy principle.
result Identifies consistent common cause that aligns with the common cause principle.
Estimates peer influence effects using embeddings for social networks.
problem Estimating peer contagion effects in social networks with unobserved confounders.
method Nonparametrically adjusts for homophily using node embeddings.
result Formalizes causal effect of peer influence in social networks.
The discovery of causal relationships is a fundamental problem in science and medicine. In recent years, many elegant approaches to discovering causal relationships between two variables from observational data have been proposed. However, most of these deal only with purely directed causal relationships and cannot det…
Observed associations in a database may be due in whole or part to variations in unrecorded (latent) variables. Identifying such variables and their causal relationships with one another is a principal goal in many scientific and practical domains. Previous work shows that, given a partition of observed variables such …
Proposes ρ-GNF for sensitivity analysis of unobserved confounding.
problem Sensitivity analysis of unobserved confounding in observational studies.
method Copulas and normalizing flows to estimate average causal effect (ACE) as a function of unobserved confounding strength.
result Develops ρcurve to provide bounds for ACE and identify confounding strength required to nullify ACE. Quantum theory challenges traditional cause-effect relations, showing causal influences even without Bell inequality violations.
problem Challenging traditional concepts of cause-effect relations in quantum mechanics.
method Introducing a general framework to estimate causal influences without interventions or classical/quantum assumptions.
result Every pure bipartite entangled state violates classical bounds on causal influence, negating the idea that Bell inequalities are the only signature of incompatibility.
Unobserved confounding is a central barrier to drawing causal inferences from observational data. Several authors have recently proposed that this barrier can be overcome in the case where one attempts to infer the effects of several variables simultaneously. In this paper, we present two simple, analytical counterexam…
We identify causal models with unobserved confounding using bijective generation mechanisms.
problem Identifying causal relationships with unobserved confounders.
method Establish counterfactual identifiability for BGMs and propose a learning method.
result Learned BGMs enable efficient counterfactual estimation.
We describe a method that infers whether statistical dependences between two observed variables X and Y are due to a "direct" causal link or only due to a connecting causal path that contains an unobserved variable of low complexity, e.g., a binary variable. This problem is motivated by statistical genetics. Given a ge…
Introduces an unobservable intrinsic electricity price to link storage theory with risk premium.
problem Connecting storage theory with risk premium in electricity markets.
method Introduces an unobservable intrinsic electricity price and derives prices for various contracts.
result Finds an overall negative risk premium in empirical analysis.
This paper corrects climate model biases using a factor model approach.
problem Systematic biases in GCM outputs due to unobserved confounders.
method Factor model approach to learn latent confounders from historical data and apply them to enhance bias correction.
result Significant improvements in the accuracy of precipitation outputs.
Improved method for unbiased causal discovery in presence of unobserved confounding.
problem Unbiased data synthesis for causal discovery algorithms in the presence of unobserved confounding.
method Explicit block-hierarchical ancestral sampling to address limitations of implicit parameterization.
result Our approach fully covers the space of causal models, including those generated by implicit parameterization.
Causal inference from observational data often assumes "ignorability," that all confounders are observed. This assumption is standard yet untestable. However, many scientific studies involve multiple causes, different variables whose effects are simultaneously of interest. We propose the deconfounder, an algorithm that…
Generative multitask learning mitigates confounders causing targets.
problem Unobserved confounders causing targets but not inputs.
method Generative multitask learning (GMTL) modifies inference objective to remove joint target influence.
result Improved robustness to target shift across multitask learning methods.
I argue that regularizing terms in standard regression methods not only help against overfitting finite data, but sometimes also yield better causal models in the infinite sample regime. I first consider a multi-dimensional variable linearly influencing a target variable with some multi-dimensional unobserved common ca…
NMF and PCC linked, improving data denoising and feature stability.
problem Improving NMF's rank estimation and feature stability.
method Combining NMF and PCC for robust rank estimation and feature stability.
result NMF features are stable against noise and optimization seeds.
This work highlights problems with off-policy estimation in recommender systems due to unobserved confounders.
problem Evaluation of recommender systems under unobserved confounders.
method Policy-based estimators and characterisation of statistical bias due to confounding.
result Naive propensity estimation under confounding leads to severely biased metric estimates.
Develops SCMs for latent selection to simplify causal analysis.
problem Latent selection complicates causal analysis.
method Introduces a conditioning operation for SCMs to encode latent selection.
result Conditioning operation preserves simplicity, acyclicity, and linearity of SCMs.
New methods improve inference after prediction without strong model assumptions.
problem Improper inference after prediction can lead to invalid results.
method Angelopoulos et al. (2023) and Wang et al. (2020) propose corrections to inference.
result Angelopoulos et al. method controls type 1 error and provides correct coverage.
Events in the world may be caused by other, unobserved events. We consider sequences of events in continuous time. Given a probability model of complete sequences, we propose particle smoothing---a form of sequential importance sampling---to impute the missing events in an incomplete sequence. We develop a trainable fa…
Given data over variables (X1,...,Xm,Y) we consider the problem of finding out whether X jointly causes Y or whether they are all confounded by an unobserved latent variable Z. To do so, we take an information-theoretic approach based on Kolmogorov complexity. In a nutshell, we follow the postulate that firs…
NeuralCSA uses neural networks to analyze causal effects under unobserved confounding.
problem Challenges in causal inference from observational data due to unobserved confounding.
method Proposes a neural framework (NeuralCSA) for generalized causal sensitivity analysis.
result Demonstrates theoretical and empirical validity of NeuralCSA for causal inference.
Clarifies the theory of the deconfounder by Imai and Jiang.
problem Theoretical requirements for the deconfounder algorithm.
method Clarifies the assumption of 'no unobserved single-cause confounders' using empirical studies.
result Imai and Jiang's clarification of the assumption does not hold for counterexamples proposed by Ogburn et al. (2020).
Estimates long-term effects from short-term experiments and observational data with unobserved confounders.
problem Estimating long-term causal effects from short-term experiments and long-term observational data with unobserved confounding.
method Combining regression residuals with short-term experimental outcomes to create an instrumental variable for estimating long-term causal effects.
result The estimator is unbiased and its variance is analytically studied.
New method selects features for sequential decision making.
problem Dynamic feature selection for instance-wise decisions.
method Latent variable model trained in a supervised manner; reasoning across stochastic latent space.
result Outperforms existing methods on various datasets.
Causal approaches to fairness have seen substantial recent interest, both from the machine learning community and from wider parties interested in ethical prediction algorithms. In no small part, this has been due to the fact that causal models allow one to simultaneously leverage data and expert knowledge to remove di…
Jointly models cause-of-death mortality rates across multiple countries and genders.
problem Modeling cause-of-death mortality rates in a multinational setting.
method Multi-Output Gaussian Processes (MOGP) with Kronecker-structured kernels and latent factors.
result Efficiently captures heterogeneity and dependence across different factor inputs.
Confounding biases recommender systems, even when data seems fully observed.
problem Unmeasured features influencing both treatment and outcome in recommender systems.
method Illustrations and simulation studies showing how common practices introduce confounding.
result Standard recommender system practices can introduce confounding, reducing performance.
Study improves sample complexity for distinguishing continuous distributions and causal relationships.
problem Distinguishing continuous distributions and causal relationships in the presence of unobserved confounding.
method Proposed an estimator of KL divergence based on von Mises expansion for closeness testing.
result Established sample complexity guarantees for causal discovery in non-linear models with continuous variables and unobserved confounding.
Paper proves causal direction can be inferred from data with limited randomness.
problem Inferring causal direction from observational data with limited randomness.
method Entropy measurement and structural causal models.
result Causal direction is identifiable for most causal models with limited entropy.
We consider linear models where d potential causes X1,...,Xd are correlated with one target quantity Y and propose a method to infer whether the association is causal or whether it is an artifact caused by overfitting or hidden common causes. We employ the idea that in the former case the vector of regression c…
Proposes ESCFR to estimate treatment effects from biased data.
problem Treatment selection bias in observational data.
method Stochastic optimal transport with relaxed mass-preserving and proximal factual outcome regularizers.
result Significantly better performance in estimating treatment effects.
New method identifies causes in time series with latent variables.
problem Identifying direct and indirect causes in time series data with hidden variables.
method Proves necessary and sufficient conditions for causal feature selection using graph constraints and conditional independence tests.
result Method outperforms Granger causality in identifying causes with low false positives and false negatives.
CAP algorithm controls FCR in online selective prediction.
problem Online predictive tasks with temporal multiplicity and FCR control.
method CAP framework with adaptive pick rule and calibration set construction.
result CAP achieves exact selection-conditional coverage guarantee and FCR control.
The estimation of treatment effects is a pervasive problem in medicine. Existing methods for estimating treatment effects from longitudinal observational data assume that there are no hidden confounders, an assumption that is not testable in practice and, if it does not hold, leads to biased estimates. In this paper, w…
Paper identifies unobserved variables from observable data.
problem Missing variables in empirical studies.
method Function mapping from observables to unobservables based on joint distribution.
result Uniqueness of latent values in each observation.
New method learns graph structure with hidden causes from observational data.
problem Learning the structure of linear non-Gaussian models with hidden causes.
method Augments hidden variable structure by learning multidirected edges and uses higher order cumulants.
result Correct structure recovery for bow-free acyclic mixed graphs with multi-directed edges.
New formula for portfolio risk management using conditional PDEs.
problem Optimal diversification and risk management of portfolios.
method Closed-form formula for conditional probability, Gaussian copulas, conditional risk-neutral PDE.
result Dynamic monitoring of portfolio volatilities and weights from PDEs.
The empirical practice of using factor models to adjust for shared, unobserved confounders, Z, in observational settings with multiple treatments, A, is widespread in fields including genetics, networks, medicine, and politics. Wang and Blei (2019, WB) formalizes these procedures and develops the …
Recently we developed a new framework in Hirz et al (2015) to model stochastic mortality using extended CreditRisk+ methodology which is very different from traditional time series methods used for mortality modelling previously. In this framework, deaths are driven by common latent stochastic risk factors which may…
Domain adaptation refers to the process of learning prediction models in a target domain by making use of data from a source domain. Many classic methods solve the domain adaptation problem by establishing a common latent space, which may cause the loss of many important properties across both domains. In this manuscri…