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Graph Neural Networks for Causal Inference Under Network Confounding

Michael P. Leung, Pantelis Loupos

arXiv 15 Nov 2022 · Econometrics · 1 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2211.07823 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper studies causal inference with observational data from a single large network. We consider a nonparametric model with interference in potential outcomes and selection into treatment. Both stages may be the outcomes of simultaneous equation models, which allow for endogenous peer effects. This results in high-dimensional network confounding where the network and covariates of all units constitute sources of selection bias. In contrast, the existing literature assumes that confounding can be summarized by a known, low-dimensional function of these objects. We propose to use graph neural networks (GNNs) to adjust for network confounding. When interference decays with network distance, we argue that the model has low-dimensional structure that makes estimation feasible and justifies the use of shallow GNN architectures.

Citation extraction

75
references
166
in-text mentions
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distinct cited
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29,299
main-text words

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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
1Leung (2022) Causal Inference Under Approximate Neighborhood Interference self1.000165100%
2Kojevnikov, Marmer and Song (2021) Limit Theorems for Network Dependent Random Variables1.000157100%
3He and Song (2024) Measuring Diffusion over a Large Network1.000103100%
4Farrell, Liang and Misra (2021) Deep Neural Networks for Estimation and Inference1.00055100%
5Kojevnikov (2021) The Bootstrap for Network Dependent Processes1.00053100%
6Emmenegger, Spohn and Bühlmann (2025) Treatment Effect Estimation from Observational Network Data Using Augmented Inverse Probability Weighting and Machine Learning0.92844100%
7Farrell (2018) Robust Inference on Average Treatment Effects with Possibly more Covariates than Observations0.92843100%
8Morris, Lipman, Maron, Rieck, Kriege, Grohe, Fey and Borgwardt (2021) Weisfeiler and Leman Go Machine Learning: The Story So Far0.87452100%
9Xu, Hu, Leskovec and Jegelka (2018) How Powerful are Graph Neural Networks?0.73732100%
10Wang, Gu and Otsu (2024) Graph Neural Networks: Theory for Estimation with Application on Network Heterogeneity0.69371100%

Showing the top 10 of 77 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
1Graph Neural Networks for Generalized Mundlak Estimator under Network Confounding1.00093
2Identifying Treatment and Spillover Effects Using Exposure Contrasts1.00074
3Learning and Testing Exposure Mappings of Interference using Graph Convolutional Autoencoder0.92843
4Neighborhood Stability in Double/Debiased Machine Learning with Dependent Data0.64422