81,103 research outputs found
Design and Analysis of Experiments in Networks: Reducing Bias from Interference
Estimating the effects of interventions in networks is complicated due to interference, such that the outcomes for one experimental unit may depend on the treatment assignments of other units. Familiar statistical formalism, experimental designs, and analysis methods assume the absence of this interference, and result in biased estimates of causal effects when it exists. While some assumptions can lead to unbiased estimates, these assumptions are generally unrealistic in the context of a network and often amount to assuming away the interference. In this work, we evaluate methods for designing and analyzing randomized experiments under minimal, realistic assumptions compatible with broad interference, where the aim is to reduce bias and possibly overall error in estimates of average effects of a global treatment. In design, we consider the ability to perform random assignment to treatments that is correlated in the network, such as through graph cluster randomization. In analysis, we consider incorporating information about the treatment assignment of network neighbors. We prove sufficient conditions for bias reduction through both design and analysis in the presence of potentially global interference; these conditions also give lower bounds on treatment effects. Through simulations of the entire process of experimentation in networks, we measure the performance of these methods under varied network structure and varied social behaviors, finding substantial bias reductions and, despite a bias–variance tradeoff, error reductions. These improvements are largest for networks with more clustering and data generating processes with both stronger direct effects of the treatment and stronger interactions between units. Keywords: causal inference; field experiments; peer effects; spillovers; social contagion; social network analysis; graph partitionin
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Estimating Peer Effects in Longitudinal Dyadic Data Using Instrumental Variables
The identification of causal peer effects (also known as social contagion or induction) from observational data in social networks is challenged by two distinct sources of bias: latent homophily and unobserved confounding. In this paper, we investigate how causal peer effects of traits and behaviors can be identified using genes (or other structurally isomorphic variables) as instrumental variables (IV) in a large set of data generating models with homophily and confounding. We use directed acyclic graphs to represent these models and employ multiple IV strategies and report three main identification results. First, using a single fixed gene (or allele) as an IV will generally fail to identify peer effects if the gene affects past values of the treatment. Second, multiple fixed genes/alleles, or, more promisingly, time-varying gene expression, can identify peer effects if we instrument exclusion violations as well as the focal treatment. Third, we show that IV identification of peer effects remains possible even under multiple complications often regarded as lethal for IV identification of intra-individual effects, such as pleiotropy on observables and unobservables, homophily on past phenotype, past and ongoing homophily on genotype, inter-phenotype peer effects, population stratification, gene expression that is endogenous to past phenotype and past gene expression, and others. We apply our identification results to estimating peer effects of body mass index (BMI) among friends and spouses in the Framingham Heart Study. Results suggest a positive causal peer effect of BMI between friends
DeepMed: Semiparametric Causal Mediation Analysis with Debiased Deep Learning
Causal mediation analysis can unpack the black box of causality and is
therefore a powerful tool for disentangling causal pathways in biomedical and
social sciences, and also for evaluating machine learning fairness. To reduce
bias for estimating Natural Direct and Indirect Effects in mediation analysis,
we propose a new method called DeepMed that uses deep neural networks (DNNs) to
cross-fit the infinite-dimensional nuisance functions in the efficient
influence functions. We obtain novel theoretical results that our DeepMed
method (1) can achieve semiparametric efficiency bound without imposing
sparsity constraints on the DNN architecture and (2) can adapt to certain low
dimensional structures of the nuisance functions, significantly advancing the
existing literature on DNN-based semiparametric causal inference. Extensive
synthetic experiments are conducted to support our findings and also expose the
gap between theory and practice. As a proof of concept, we apply DeepMed to
analyze two real datasets on machine learning fairness and reach conclusions
consistent with previous findings.Comment: Accepted by NeurIPS 202
Causal inference for social network data
We describe semiparametric estimation and inference for causal effects using
observational data from a single social network. Our asymptotic result is the
first to allow for dependence of each observation on a growing number of other
units as sample size increases. While previous methods have generally
implicitly focused on one of two possible sources of dependence among social
network observations, we allow for both dependence due to transmission of
information across network ties, and for dependence due to latent similarities
among nodes sharing ties. We describe estimation and inference for new causal
effects that are specifically of interest in social network settings, such as
interventions on network ties and network structure. Using our methods to
reanalyze the Framingham Heart Study data used in one of the most influential
and controversial causal analyses of social network data, we find that after
accounting for network structure there is no evidence for the causal effects
claimed in the original paper
The "Unfriending" Problem: The Consequences of Homophily in Friendship Retention for Causal Estimates of Social Influence
An increasing number of scholars are using longitudinal social network data
to try to obtain estimates of peer or social influence effects. These data may
provide additional statistical leverage, but they can introduce new inferential
problems. In particular, while the confounding effects of homophily in
friendship formation are widely appreciated, homophily in friendship retention
may also confound causal estimates of social influence in longitudinal network
data. We provide evidence for this claim in a Monte Carlo analysis of the
statistical model used by Christakis, Fowler, and their colleagues in numerous
articles estimating "contagion" effects in social networks. Our results
indicate that homophily in friendship retention induces significant upward bias
and decreased coverage levels in the Christakis and Fowler model if there is
non-negligible friendship attrition over time.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figure
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