IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2103.06471.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Causal inference with misspecified exposure mappings: separating definitions and assumptions

Author

Listed:
  • Fredrik Savje

Abstract

Exposure mappings facilitate investigations of complex causal effects when units interact in experiments. Current methods require experimenters to use the same exposure mappings both to define the effect of interest and to impose assumptions on the interference structure. However, the two roles rarely coincide in practice, and experimenters are forced to make the often questionable assumption that their exposures are correctly specified. This paper argues that the two roles exposure mappings currently serve can, and typically should, be separated, so that exposures are used to define effects without necessarily assuming that they are capturing the complete causal structure in the experiment. The paper shows that this approach is practically viable by providing conditions under which exposure effects can be precisely estimated when the exposures are misspecified. Some important questions remain open.

Suggested Citation

  • Fredrik Savje, 2021. "Causal inference with misspecified exposure mappings: separating definitions and assumptions," Papers 2103.06471, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2103.06471
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.06471
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eckles Dean & Karrer Brian & Ugander Johan, 2017. "Design and Analysis of Experiments in Networks: Reducing Bias from Interference," Journal of Causal Inference, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-23, March.
    2. Charles F. Manski, 2013. "Identification of treatment response with social interactions," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 16(1), pages 1-23, February.
    3. David Choi, 2017. "Estimation of Monotone Treatment Effects in Network Experiments," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 112(519), pages 1147-1155, July.
    4. Michael P. Leung, 2022. "Causal Inference Under Approximate Neighborhood Interference," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 267-293, January.
    5. Susan Athey & Dean Eckles & Guido W. Imbens, 2018. "Exact p-Values for Network Interference," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(521), pages 230-240, January.
    6. Bowers, Jake & Fredrickson, Mark M. & Panagopoulos, Costas, 2013. "Reasoning about Interference Between Units: A General Framework," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 21(1), pages 97-124, January.
    7. Rosenbaum, Paul R., 2007. "Interference Between Units in Randomized Experiments," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 102, pages 191-200, March.
    8. Hudgens, Michael G. & Halloran, M. Elizabeth, 2008. "Toward Causal Inference With Interference," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 103, pages 832-842, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. C. Tort`u & I. Crimaldi & F. Mealli & L. Forastiere, 2020. "Modelling Network Interference with Multi-valued Treatments: the Causal Effect of Immigration Policy on Crime Rates," Papers 2003.10525, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2020.
    2. Jinglong Zhao, 2024. "Experimental Design For Causal Inference Through An Optimization Lens," Papers 2408.09607, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2024.
    3. Han, Kevin & Basse, Guillaume & Bojinov, Iavor, 2024. "Population interference in panel experiments," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 238(1).
    4. Zhaonan Qu & Ruoxuan Xiong & Jizhou Liu & Guido Imbens, 2021. "Semiparametric Estimation of Treatment Effects in Observational Studies with Heterogeneous Partial Interference," Papers 2107.12420, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2024.
    5. Vivek F. Farias & Andrew A. Li & Tianyi Peng & Andrew Zheng, 2022. "Markovian Interference in Experiments," Papers 2206.02371, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2022.
    6. Davide Viviano & Jess Rudder, 2020. "Policy design in experiments with unknown interference," Papers 2011.08174, arXiv.org, revised May 2024.
    7. Elizabeth L. Ogburn & Ilya Shpitser & Youjin Lee, 2020. "Causal inference, social networks and chain graphs," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(4), pages 1659-1676, October.
    8. Gonzalo Vazquez-Bare, 2017. "Identification and Estimation of Spillover Effects in Randomized Experiments," Papers 1711.02745, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    9. Supriya Tiwari & Pallavi Basu, 2024. "Quasi-randomization tests for network interference," Papers 2403.16673, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2024.
    10. Michael P. Leung, 2021. "Rate-Optimal Cluster-Randomized Designs for Spatial Interference," Papers 2111.04219, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2022.
    11. Ariel Boyarsky & Hongseok Namkoong & Jean Pouget-Abadie, 2023. "Modeling Interference Using Experiment Roll-out," Papers 2305.10728, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    12. Shaina J. Alexandria & Michael G. Hudgens & Allison E. Aiello, 2023. "Assessing intervention effects in a randomized trial within a social network," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 79(2), pages 1409-1419, June.
    13. Michael P. Leung, 2022. "Causal Inference Under Approximate Neighborhood Interference," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 90(1), pages 267-293, January.
    14. Stefan Wager & Kuang Xu, 2021. "Experimenting in Equilibrium," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 67(11), pages 6694-6715, November.
    15. Kosuke Imai & Zhichao Jiang, 2020. "Identification and sensitivity analysis of contagion effects in randomized placebo‐controlled trials," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 183(4), pages 1637-1657, October.
    16. Anish Agarwal & Sarah H. Cen & Devavrat Shah & Christina Lee Yu, 2022. "Network Synthetic Interventions: A Causal Framework for Panel Data Under Network Interference," Papers 2210.11355, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    17. Davide Viviano, 2020. "Experimental Design under Network Interference," Papers 2003.08421, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2022.
    18. Mathias Lundin & Maria Karlsson, 2014. "Estimation of causal effects in observational studies with interference between units," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 23(3), pages 417-433, August.
    19. Tadao Hoshino & Takahide Yanagi, 2021. "Causal Inference with Noncompliance and Unknown Interference," Papers 2108.07455, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    20. Yuehao Bai & Azeem M. Shaikh & Max Tabord-Meehan, 2024. "A Primer on the Analysis of Randomized Experiments and a Survey of some Recent Advances," Papers 2405.03910, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2103.06471. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.