EconBase
← All papers

Minimax Kernel Machine Learning for a Class of Doubly Robust Functionals with Application to Proximal Causal Inference

AmirEmad Ghassami, Andrew Ying, Ilya Shpitser, Eric Tchetgen Tchetgen

arXiv 7 Apr 2021 · Statistics — Machine Learning · 9 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2104.02929 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

Robins et al. (2008) introduced a class of influence functions (IFs) which could be used to obtain doubly robust moment functions for the corresponding parameters. However, that class does not include the IF of parameters for which the nuisance functions are solutions to integral equations. Such parameters are particularly important in the field of causal inference, specifically in the recently proposed proximal causal inference framework of Tchetgen Tchetgen et al. (2020), which allows for estimating the causal effect in the presence of latent confounders. In this paper, we first extend the class of Robins et al. to include doubly robust IFs in which the nuisance functions are solutions to integral equations. Then we demonstrate that the double robustness property of these IFs can be leveraged to construct estimating equations for the nuisance functions, which enables us to solve the integral equations without resorting to parametric models. We frame the estimation of the nuisance functions as a minimax optimization problem. We provide convergence rates for the nuisance functions and conditions required for asymptotic linearity of the estimator of the parameter of interest. The experiment results demonstrate that our proposed methodology leads to robust and high-performance estimators for average causal effect in the proximal causal inference framework.

Citation extraction

74
references
184
in-text mentions
74
distinct cited
6
self-citations
8,417
main-text words

appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 46% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

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
1Robins, J., Li, L., Tchetgen Tchetgen, E., van der Vaart, A., et al (2008) Higher order influence functions and minimax estimation of nonlinear functionals0.9568488%
2Tchetgen Tchetgen, E. J., Ying, A., Cui, Y., Shi, X., and Miao, W (2020) An introduction to proximal causal learning self0.8947571%
3Cui, Y., Pu, H., Shi, X., Miao, W., and Tchetgen Tchetgen, E (2020) Semiparametric proximal causal inference0.86314564%
4Miao, W., Geng, Z., and Tchetgen Tchetgen, E. J (2018) Identifying causal effects with proxy variables of an unmeasured confounder0.8307357%
5Dikkala, N., Lewis, G., Mackey, L., and Syrgkanis, V (2020) Minimax estimation of conditional moment models0.75414443%
6Chernozhukov, V., Chetverikov, D., Demirer, M., Duflo, E., Hansen, C… (2018) Double/debiased machine learning for treatment and structural parameters0.6939333%
7Hernán, M. A. and Robins, J. M (2020) Causal inference: what if0.64422100%
8Van der Vaart, A. W (2000) Asymptotic statistics, volume 30.64422100%
9Chen, X. and Pouzo, D (2012) Estimation of nonparametric conditional moment models with possibly nonsmooth generalized residuals0.5854325%
10Kallus, N., Mao, X., and Uehara, M (2021) Causal inference under unmeasured confounding with negative controls: A minimax learning approach0.5757157%

Showing the top 10 of 74 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
1Debiased Ill-Posed Regression0.87492
2Long-term Causal Inference Under Persistent Confounding via Data Combination0.64422
3Adversarial Estimation of Riesz Representers0.51121
4Combining Experimental and Observational Data for Identification and Estimation of Long-Term Causal Effects0.51121
5Proxy Controls and Panel Data0.40511
6Anytime-Valid Inference for Double/Debiased Machine Learning of Causal Parameters0.40511
7Penalized GMM Framework for Inference on Functionals of Nonparametric Instrumental Variable Estimators0.40511
8Assumption-lean Falsification Tests of Rate Double-Robustness of Double-Machine-Learning Estimators0.00031