arXiv Statistics ML By Silvan Vollmer, Niklas Pfister, Sebastian Weichwald

Identifying Causal Effects Using a Single Proxy Variable

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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.

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