arXiv Machine Learning By Ruizi Yan, Dennis Frauen, Maresa Schr\"oder, Stefan Feuerriegel

Path-specific harm decomposition: A partial identification framework

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The paper introduces a path‑specific version of the fraction of negatively affected (FNA) to separate total harm into direct and indirect components in causal mediation settings. Because these components depend on joint distributions of potential outcomes that are not point‑identified, the authors develop a partial identification framework, deriving sharp Makarov bounds and a semiparametric efficient estimator with valid confidence intervals under mild margin conditions. The framework is illustrated through numerical experiments, marking the first study of path‑specific harm decomposition and its orthogonal inference.

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