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Sparsity Double Robust Inference of Average Treatment Effects

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  • Jelena Bradic
  • Stefan Wager
  • Yinchu Zhu

Abstract

Many popular methods for building confidence intervals on causal effects under high-dimensional confounding require strong "ultra-sparsity" assumptions that may be difficult to validate in practice. To alleviate this difficulty, we here study a new method for average treatment effect estimation that yields asymptotically exact confidence intervals assuming that either the conditional response surface or the conditional probability of treatment allows for an ultra-sparse representation (but not necessarily both). This guarantee allows us to provide valid inference for average treatment effect in high dimensions under considerably more generality than available baselines. In addition, we showcase that our results are semi-parametrically efficient.

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  • Jelena Bradic & Stefan Wager & Yinchu Zhu, 2019. "Sparsity Double Robust Inference of Average Treatment Effects," Papers 1905.00744, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1905.00744
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Jiang, Liang & Phillips, Peter C.B. & Tao, Yubo & Zhang, Yichong, 2023. "Regression-adjusted estimation of quantile treatment effects under covariate-adaptive randomizations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 758-776.
    2. Liu, Lin & Mukherjee, Rajarshi & Robins, James M., 2024. "Assumption-lean falsification tests of rate double-robustness of double-machine-learning estimators," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 240(2).
    3. Harold D Chiang & Yukitoshi Matsushita & Taisuke Otsu, 2023. "Regression adjustment in randomized controlled trials with many covariates," STICERD - Econometrics Paper Series 627, Suntory and Toyota International Centres for Economics and Related Disciplines, LSE.
    4. Kuanhao Jiang & Rajarshi Mukherjee & Subhabrata Sen & Pragya Sur, 2022. "A New Central Limit Theorem for the Augmented IPW Estimator: Variance Inflation, Cross-Fit Covariance and Beyond," Papers 2205.10198, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    5. Victor Chernozhukov & Whitney K. Newey & Victor Quintas-Martinez & Vasilis Syrgkanis, 2021. "Automatic Debiased Machine Learning via Riesz Regression," Papers 2104.14737, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    6. Zhichao Jiang & Shu Yang & Peng Ding, 2022. "Multiply robust estimation of causal effects under principal ignorability," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 84(4), pages 1423-1445, September.
    7. Chen, Jiafeng & Ritzwoller, David M., 2023. "Semiparametric estimation of long-term treatment effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 237(2).
    8. Jelena Bradic & Weijie Ji & Yuqian Zhang, 2021. "High-dimensional Inference for Dynamic Treatment Effects," Papers 2110.04924, arXiv.org, revised May 2023.
    9. Harold D Chiang & Yukitoshi Matsushita & Taisuke Otsu, 2023. "Regression adjustment in randomized controlled trials with many covariates," Papers 2302.00469, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2023.
    10. Yuqian Zhang & Weijie Ji & Jelena Bradic, 2021. "Dynamic treatment effects: high-dimensional inference under model misspecification," Papers 2111.06818, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2025.
    11. Xinkun Nie & Guido Imbens & Stefan Wager, 2021. "Covariate Balancing Sensitivity Analysis for Extrapolating Randomized Trials across Locations," Papers 2112.04723, arXiv.org.
    12. Davide Viviano, 2019. "Policy Targeting under Network Interference," Papers 1906.10258, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.

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