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Robust Inference on Average Treatment Effects with Possibly More Covariates than Observations

Max H. Farrell

arXiv 18 Sep 2013 · Mathematics — Statistics Theory · publishedJournal of Econometrics (2015) · 340 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:1309.4686 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper concerns robust inference on average treatment effects following model selection. In the selection on observables framework, we show how to construct confidence intervals based on a doubly-robust estimator that are robust to model selection errors and prove that they are valid uniformly over a large class of treatment effect models. The class allows for multivalued treatments with heterogeneous effects (in observables), general heteroskedasticity, and selection amongst (possibly) more covariates than observations. Our estimator attains the semiparametric efficiency bound under appropriate conditions. Precise conditions are given for any model selector to yield these results, and we show how to combine data-driven selection with economic theory. For implementation, we give a specific proposal for selection based on the group lasso, which is particularly well-suited to treatment effects data, and derive new results for high-dimensional, sparse multinomial logistic regression. A simulation study shows our estimator performs very well in finite samples over a wide range of models. Revisiting the National Supported Work demonstration data, our method yields accurate estimates and tight confidence intervals.

Citation extraction

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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Belloni, Chernozhukov, and Hansen (2014) Inference on Treatment Effects after Selection Amongst High-Dimensional Controls1.00064100%
2Belloni, Chen, Chernozhukov, and Hansen (2012) Sparse models and methods for optimal instruments with an application to eminent domain0.8558562%
3Cattaneo (2010) Efficient Semiparametric Estimation of Multi-valued Treatment Effects under Ignorability0.84333100%
4Wooldridge (2010) Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data0.84333100%
5Lounici, Pontil, van de Geer, and Tsybakov (2011) Oracle Inequalities and Optimal Inference under Group Sparsity0.79412450%
6Belloni and Chernozhukov (2013) Least Squares After Model Selection in High-dimensional Sparse Models0.7375440%
7de la Peña, Lai, and Shao (2009) Self-Normalized Processes: Limit Theory and Statistical Applications, Probability and Its Applications0.7375440%
8Belloni and Chernozhukov (2011) $_1$-Penalized quantile regression in high-dimensional sparse models0.7374350%
9Belloni, Chernozhukov, Fernandez-Val, and Hansen (2014) Program Evaluation with High-Dimensional Data0.73732100%
10Obozinski, Wainwright, and Jordan (2011) Support Union Recovery in High-Dimensional Multivariate Regression0.73732100%

Showing the top 10 of 88 scored citations.

Cited by, within the corpus

arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1Approximate Residual Balancing: De-Biased Inference of Average Treatment Effects in High Dimensions1.00094
2Deep Neural Networks for Estimation and Inference1.00063
3Minimax Semiparametric Learning With Approximate Sparsity0.92843
4Graph Neural Networks for Causal Inference Under Network Confounding0.92843
5Deep Learning for Individual Heterogeneity0.84354
6Estimation of Conditional Average Treatment Effects with High-Dimensional Data0.84333
7Augmented balancing weights as linear regression0.73742
8Double/Debiased Machine Learning for Treatment and Structural Parameters0.73732
9Sparsity Double Robust Inference of Average Treatment Effects0.73732
10On the Asymptotic Properties of Debiased Machine Learning Estimators0.73732