EconBase
← All papers

Shrinkage-Based Regressions with Many Related Treatments

Enes Dilber, Colin Gray

arXiv 1 Jul 2025 · Econometrics

arXiv:2507.01202 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

When using observational causal models, practitioners often want to disentangle the effects of many related, partially-overlapping treatments. Examples include estimating treatment effects of different marketing touchpoints, ordering different types of products, or signing up for different services. Common approaches that estimate separate treatment coefficients are too noisy for practical decision-making. We propose a computationally light model that uses a customized ridge regression to move between a heterogeneous and a homogenous model: it substantially reduces MSE for the effects of each individual sub-treatment while allowing us to easily reconstruct the effects of an aggregated treatment. We demonstrate the properties of this estimator in theory and simulation, and illustrate how it has unlocked targeted decision-making at Wayfair.

Citation extraction

9
references
12
in-text mentions
9
distinct cited
0
self-citations
2,763
main-text words

appendix boundary found by appendix_titled_section at “Appendix” · 80% 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
1Nie, X. and S. Wager (2017) Quasi-Oracle Estimation of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects0.64422100%
2Chernozhukov, V., C. Hansen, N. Kallus, M. Spindler, and V. Syrgkanis (2024) Applied Causal Inference Powered by ML and AI0.51121100%
3Chernozhukov, V., D. Chetverikov, M. Demirer, E. Duflo, C. Hansen, W… (2016) Double/Debiased Machine Learning for Treatment and Causal Parameters0.51121100%
4Gelman, A., J. Carlin, H. Stern, D. Dunson, A. Vehtari, and D. Rubin (2013) Bayesian Data Analysis (3rd ed.)0.40511100%
5Mahajan, D., I. Mitliagkas, B. Neal, and V. Syrgkanis (2022) Empirical Analysis of Model Selection for Heterogeneous Causal Effect Estimation0.40511100%
6Kennedy, E. H (2020) Towards optimal doubly robust estimation of heterogeneous causal effects0.40511100%
7Lal, A (2024) Does Regression Produce Representative Causal Rankings?0.40511100%
8Athey, S. and G. Imbens (2025) Identification of Average Treatment Effects in Nonparametric Panel Models0.40511100%
9Künzel, S. R., J. S. Sekhon, P. J. Bickel, and B. Yu (2019) Metalearners for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects using machine learning0.40511100%

Showing the top 9 of 9 scored citations.