Suppose one is interested in estimating causal effects in the presence of potentially unmeasured confounding with the aid of a valid instrumental variable. This paper investigates the problem of making inferences about the average treatment effect when data are fused from two separate sources, one of which contains information on the treatment and the other contains information on the outcome, while values for the instrument and a vector of baseline covariates are recorded in both. We provide a general set of sufficient conditions under which the average treatment effect is nonparametrically identified from the observed data law induced by data fusion, even when the data are from two heterogeneous populations, and derive the efficiency bound for estimating this causal parameter. For inference, we develop both parametric and semiparametric methods, including a multiply robust and locally efficient estimator that is consistent even under partial misspecification of the observed data model. We illustrate the methods through simulations and an application on public housing projects.
The instrumental variable method is widely used in the health and social sciences for identification and estimation of causal effects in the presence of potentially unmeasured confounding. In order to improve efficiency, multiple instruments are routinely used, leading to concerns about bias due to possible violation of the instrumental variable assumptions. To address this concern, we introduce a new class of g-estimators that are guaranteed to remain consistent and asymptotically normal for the causal effect of interest provided that a set of at least $γ$ out of $K$ candidate instruments are…
Linear transformation model provides a general framework for analyzing censored survival data with covariates. The proportional hazards and proportional odds models are special cases of the linear transformation model. In biomedical studies, covariates with measurement error may occur in survival data. In this work, we propose a method to obtain estimators of the regression coefficients in the linear transformation model when the covariates are subject to measurement error. In the proposed method, we assume that instrumental variables are available. We develop counting process based estimating…
Efficient semiparametric estimation of marginal treatment effects with genetic instrumental variables
MRC Biostatistics Unit, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学 MRC 生物统计单元）；Department of Economics, University of Oxford（牛津大学经济系）；Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge（剑桥大学心血管流行病学单元）
Robins (1998) introduced marginal structural models (MSMs), a general class of counterfactual models for the joint effects of time-varying treatment regimes in complex longitudinal studies subject to time-varying confounding. He established identification of MSM parameters under a sequential randomization assumption (SRA), which essentially rules out unmeasured confounding of treatment assignment over time. In this technical report, we consider sufficient conditions for identification of MSM parameters with the aid of a time-varying instrumental variable, when sequential randomization fails to…
In observational studies, treatments are typically not randomized and therefore estimated treatment effects may be subject to confounding bias. The instrumental variable (IV) design plays the role of a quasi-experimental handle since the IV is associated with the treatment and only affects the outcome through the treatment. In this paper, we present a novel framework for identification and inference using an IV for the marginal average treatment effect amongst the treated (ETT) in the presence of unmeasured confounding. For inference, we propose three different semiparametric approaches: (i) i…
We study a linear random coefficient model where slope parameters may be correlated with some continuous covariates. Such a model specification may occur in empirical research, for instance, when quantifying the effect of a continuous treatment observed at two time periods. We show one can carry identification and estimation without instruments. We propose a semiparametric estimator of average partial effects and of average treatment effects on the treated. We showcase the small sample properties of our estimator in an extensive simulation study. Among other things, we reveal that it compares …
There is a fast-growing literature on estimating optimal treatment regimes based on randomized trials or observational studies under a key identifying condition of no unmeasured confounding. Because confounding by unmeasured factors cannot generally be ruled out with certainty in observational studies or randomized trials subject to noncompliance, we propose a general instrumental variable approach to learning optimal treatment regimes under endogeneity. Specifically, we establish identification of both value function $E[Y_{\mathcal{D}(L)}]$ for a given regime $\mathcal{D}$ and optimal regimes…
Average Treatment Effect Estimation with Non-binary Instrumental Variables
University of Toronto（多伦多大学）；Shanghai Jiao Tong University（上海交通大学）；University of Ottawa（渥太华大学）；Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, University Health Network（公主玛格丽特癌症中心，联合健康网络）
Nonparametric Inference with an Instrumental Variable under a Separable Binary Treatment Choice Model
Department of Statistics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校统计学系）；Department of Statistics and Data Science, University of Pennsylvania（宾夕法尼亚大学统计与数据科学系）
This article introduces a new instrumental variable approach for estimating unknown population parameters with data having nonrandom missing values. With coarse and discrete instruments, Shao and Wang (2016) proposed a semiparametric method that uses the added information to identify the tilting parameter from the missing data propensity model. A naive application of this idea to continuous instruments through arbitrary discretizations is apt to be inefficient, and maybe questionable in some settings. We propose a nonparametric method not requiring arbitrary discretizations but involves scanni…
Instrumental variables are commonly used to estimate effects of a treatment afflicted by unmeasured confounding, and in practice instruments are often continuous (e.g., measures of distance, or treatment preference). However, available methods for continuous instruments have important limitations: they either require restrictive parametric assumptions for identification, or else rely on modeling both the outcome and treatment process well (and require modeling effect modification by all adjustment covariates). In this work we develop the first semiparametric doubly robust estimators of the loc…
Semiparametric Mediation Analysis with Separately Observed Mediator and Outcome under Unmeasured Confounding
Department of Biostatistics, University of California, Los Angeles（加州大学洛杉矶分校生物统计系）；Department of Biostatistics, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health（哈佛大学陈曾熙公共卫生学院生物统计系）
University of Pennsylvania（宾夕法尼亚大学）；University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校）；Washington University in St. Louis（圣路易斯华盛顿大学）；Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health（哈佛大学陈曾熙公共卫生学院）
Instrumental variables analysis using genetic markers as instruments is now a widely used technique in epidemiology and biostatistics. As single markers tend to explain only a small proportion of phenotypic variation, there is increasing interest in using multiple genetic markers to obtain more precise estimates of causal parameters. Structural mean models (SMMs) are semiparametric models that use instrumental variables to identify causal parameters. Recently, interest has started to focus on using these models with multiple instruments, particularly for multiplicative and logistic SMMs. In th…
Combining information from multiple samples is often needed in biomedical and economic studies, but the differences between these samples must be appropriately taken into account in the analysis of the combined data. We study estimation for moment restriction models with data combination from two samples under an ignorablility-type assumption but allowing for different marginal distributions of common variables between the two samples. Suppose that an outcome regression model and a propensity score model are specified. By leveraging the semiparametric efficiency theory, we derive an augmented …
Massachusetts Institute of Technology（麻省理工学院）；Center for Monetary and Financial Studies（货币与金融研究中心）
We propose a semiparametric test to evaluate (i) whether different instruments induce subpopulations of compliers with the same observable characteristics on average, and (ii) whether compliers have observable characteristics that are the same as the full population on average. The test is a flexible robustness check for the external validity of instruments. We use it to reinterpret the difference in LATE estimates that Angrist and Evans (1998) obtain when using different instrumental variables. To justify the test, we characterize the doubly robust moment for Abadie (2003)'s class of complier…
Zhejiang University（浙江大学）；Emory University（埃默里大学）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）；Shanghai AI Laboratory（上海人工智能实验室）；Shanghai Institute for Advanced Study of Zhejiang University（浙江大学上海高等研究院）
The advent of the big data era brought new opportunities and challenges to draw treatment effect in data fusion, that is, a mixed dataset collected from multiple sources (each source with an independent treatment assignment mechanism). Due to possibly omitted source labels and unmeasured confounders, traditional methods cannot estimate individual treatment assignment probability and infer treatment effect effectively. Therefore, we propose to reconstruct the source label and model it as a Group Instrumental Variable (GIV) to implement IV-based Regression for treatment effect estimation. In thi…
In observational studies, instrumental variable (IV) methods are commonly applied when there exists some unmeasured covariates. In Mendelian Randomization (MR), constructing an allele score by using many single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) is often implemented; however, there are risks estimating biased causal effects by including some invalid IVs. Invalid IVs are candidates of IVs associated with some unobserved variables. To solve this problem, we propose a novel strategy in this paper: using Negative Control Outcomes (NCOs) as auxiliary variables. By using NCOs, we can essentialy select …
Missing data occur frequently in empirical studies in health and social sciences, often compromising our ability to make accurate inferences. An outcome is said to be missing not at random (MNAR) if, conditional on the observed variables, the missing data mechanism still depends on the unobserved outcome. In such settings, identification is generally not possible without imposing additional assumptions. Identification is sometimes possible, however, if an instrumental variable (IV) is observed for all subjects which satisfies the exclusion restriction that the IV affects the missingness proces…
Unmeasured confounding is a key threat to reliable causal inference based on observational studies. Motivated from two powerful natural experiment devices, the instrumental variables and difference-in-differences, we propose a new method called instrumented difference-in-differences that explicitly leverages exogenous randomness in an exposure trend to estimate the average and conditional average treatment effect in the presence of unmeasured confounding. We develop the identification assumptions using the potential outcomes framework. We propose a Wald estimator and a class of multiply robust…
Indiana University - Purdue University Indianapolis（印第安纳大学与普渡大学印第安纳波利斯联合分校）；New Jersey Institute of Technology（新泽西理工学院）；Purdue University（普渡大学）
The endogeneity issue is fundamentally important as many empirical applications may suffer from the omission of explanatory variables, measurement error, or simultaneous causality. Recently, \cite{hllt17} propose a "Deep Instrumental Variable (IV)" framework based on deep neural networks to address endogeneity, demonstrating superior performances than existing approaches. The aim of this paper is to theoretically understand the empirical success of the Deep IV. Specifically, we consider a two-stage estimator using deep neural networks in the linear instrumental variables model. By imposing a l…
This paper studies treatment effect models in which individuals are classified into unobserved groups based on heterogeneous treatment rules. Using a finite mixture approach, we propose a marginal treatment effect (MTE) framework in which the treatment choice and outcome equations can be heterogeneous across groups. Under the availability of instrumental variables specific to each group, we show that the MTE for each group can be separately identified. Based on our identification result, we propose a two-step semiparametric procedure for estimating the group-wise MTE. We illustrate the usefuln…
We study a continuous treatment effect model in the presence of treatment spillovers through social networks. We assume that one's outcome is affected not only by his/her own treatment but also by a (weighted) average of his/her neighbors' treatments, both of which are treated as endogenous variables. Using a control function approach with appropriate instrumental variables, we show that the conditional mean potential outcome can be nonparametrically identified. We also consider a more empirically tractable semiparametric model and develop a three-step estimation procedure for this model. As a…
When the response mechanism is believed to be not missing at random (NMAR), a valid analysis requires stronger assumptions on the response mechanism than standard statistical methods would otherwise require. Semiparametric estimators have been developed under the model assumptions on the response mechanism. In this paper, a new statistical test is proposed to guarantee model identifiability without using any instrumental variable. Furthermore, we develop optimal semiparametric estimation for parameters such as the population mean. Specifically, we propose two semiparametric optimal estimators …
Many estimators of the average effect of a treatment on an outcome require estimation of the propensity score, the outcome regression, or both. It is often beneficial to utilize flexible techniques such as semiparametric regression or machine learning to estimate these quantities. However, optimal estimation of these regressions does not necessarily lead to optimal estimation of the average treatment effect, particularly in settings with strong instrumental variables. A recent proposal addressed these issues via the outcome-adaptive lasso, a penalized regression technique for estimating the pr…
