arXiv AI

Towards a holistic understanding of Selection Bias for Causal Effect Identification

arXiv:2605. 13430v3 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Selection bias is pervasive in observational studies.

arXiv Statistics ML
5d ago

Identifying Causal Effects Using a Single Proxy Variable

The paper tackles the problem of estimating causal effects when an unobserved confounder is present. It assumes a single, possibly multi‑dimensional proxy variable for the confounder and knowledge of the mechanism that generates this proxy. Under the Single Proxy Identifiability of Causal Effects (SPICE) assumption, the authors prove that the error mechanism is complete and causal effects are identifiable, extending prior proxy‑based results to continuous, multi‑dimensional settings and more flexible functional forms. They also introduce SPICE‑Net, a neural‑network‑based framework for estimating causal effects applicable to both discrete and continuous treatments.

By Silvan Vollmer, Niklas Pfister, Sebastian Weichwald
arXiv AI
Aug 24

Foundation Models for Partial Causal Identification

The paper introduces causal foundation models that can bound the effects of interventions and counterfactuals using only observational data. It defines a canonical prior with full support over structural causal models with discrete observables, enabling the translation of counterfactual bounding into learning distributions over functions that map data and structural assumptions to causal queries. This approach extends causal foundational modelling to partially-identifiable causal effects, where unobserved confounding leads to multiple compatible values for the effect.

By Alexis Bellot, Anish Dhir
arXiv AI
Jun 19

Computational Identifiability

arXiv:2606. 19361v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Identification conditions describe the computability of a target query or parameter of interest as a function of the type and amount of information available.

By Lucius E. J. Bynum, Rajesh Ranganath, Kyunghyun Cho
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 14

Decomposing Discrimination: Causal Mediation Analysis for AI-Driven Credit Decisions

The paper introduces a causal mediation framework to separate direct discrimination from structural inequality in AI-driven credit decisions. Using Pearl’s natural direct and indirect effects, it presents an identification strategy under treatment‑induced confounding and proposes a doubly‑robust estimator with efficiency guarantees. Empirical analysis of 89,465 mortgage applications shows that about 77% of racial denial disparities stem from financial mediators, while the remaining 23% represents a conservative lower bound on direct discrimination.

By Duraimurugan Rajamanickam