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causalfe: Causal Forests with Fixed Effects in Python

Harry Aytug

arXiv 15 Jan 2026 · Econometrics

arXiv:2601.10555 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

The causalfe package provides a Python implementation of Causal Forests with Fixed Effects (CFFE) for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects in panel data settings. Standard causal forest methods struggle with panel data because unit and time fixed effects induce spurious heterogeneity in treatment effect estimates. The CFFE approach addresses this by performing node-level residualization during tree construction, removing fixed effects within each candidate split rather than globally. This paper describes the methodology, documents the software interface, and demonstrates the package through simulation studies that validate the estimator's performance under various data generating processes.

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
1Mark A. C. Kattenberg and Bas J. Scheer and Jurre H. Thiel (2023) Causal Forests with Fixed Effects for Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in Difference-in-Differences0.92843100%
2Stefan Wager and Susan Athey (2018) Estimation and Inference of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects Using Random Forests0.81142100%
3Brantly Callaway and Pedro H. C. Sant'Anna (2021) Difference-in-Differences with Multiple Time Periods0.51121100%
4Susan Athey and Guido Imbens (2016) Recursive Partitioning for Heterogeneous Causal Effects0.40511100%
5Microsoft Research (2024) EconML: A Python Package for ML-Based Heterogeneous Treatment Effects Estimation0.40511100%
6Julie Tibshirani and Susan Athey and Stefan Wager (2024) grf: Generalized Random Forests0.40511100%

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Cited by, within the corpus

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

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1To Adopt or Not to Adopt: Heterogeneous Trade Effects of the Euro0.00011