Download or read book Using Latent Variable Models to Improve Causal Estimation written by Huseyin Oktay and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Estimating the causal effect of a treatment from data has been a key goal for a large number of studies in many domains. Traditionally, researchers use carefully designed randomized experiments for causal inference. However, such experiments can not only be costly in terms of time and money but also infeasible for some causal questions. To overcome these challenges, causal estimation methods from observational data have been developed by researchers from diverse disciplines and increasingly studies using such methods account for a large share in empirical work. Such growing interest has also brought together two arguably separate fields: machine learning and causal estimation, and this thesis also contributes to this intersection. Specifically, in observational data researchers have lack of control over the data generation process. This results in a fundamental challenge: the presence of confounder variables (i.e., variables that affect both treatment and outcome). Such variables, when not adjusted statistically, can result in biased causal estimates. When confounder variables are observed, many methods can be used to adjust for their effect. However, in most real world observational data sets, accurately measuring all potential confounder variables is far from feasible, hence important confounder variables are likely to remain unobserved. The central idea of this thesis is to explicitly account for unobserved confounders by inferring their values using a predictive model. This thesis presents three main contributions in the intersection of machine learning and causal estimation. First, we present one of the earliest application of causal estimation methods from social sciences to social media platforms to answer three causal questions. Second, we present a novel generative model for estimating ordinal variables with distant supervision. We also apply this model to data from US Twitter user population and discover variation in behavior among users from different age groups. Third, we characterize the behavior of an effect restoration model based on graphical models with theoretical analysis and simulation studies. We also apply this effect restoration model with predictive models to account for unobserved confounder variables.

Download or read book Latent Variable Modeling and Applications to Causality written by Maia Berkane and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume gathers refereed papers presented at the 1994 UCLA conference on "La tent Variable Modeling and Application to Causality. " The meeting was organized by the UCLA Interdivisional Program in Statistics with the purpose of bringing together a group of people who have done recent advanced work in this field. The papers in this volume are representative of a wide variety of disciplines in which the use of latent variable models is rapidly growing. The volume is divided into two broad sections. The first section covers Path Models and Causal Reasoning and the papers are innovations from contributors in disciplines not traditionally associated with behavioural sciences, (e. g. computer science with Judea Pearl and public health with James Robins). Also in this section are contri butions by Rod McDonald and Michael Sobel who have a more traditional approach to causal inference, generating from problems in behavioural sciences. The second section encompasses new approaches to questions of model selection with emphasis on factor analysis and time varying systems. Amemiya uses nonlinear factor analysis which has a higher order of complexity associated with the identifiability condi tions. Muthen studies longitudinal hierarchichal models with latent variables and treats the time vector as a variable rather than a level of hierarchy. Deleeuw extends exploratory factor analysis models by including time as a variable and allowing for discrete and ordi nal latent variables. Arminger looks at autoregressive structures and Bock treats factor analysis models for categorical data.

Download or read book Latent Variable Models written by John C. Loehlin and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2004-05-20 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book introduces multiple-latent variable models by utilizing path diagrams to explain the underlying relationships in the models. This approach helps less mathematically inclined students grasp the underlying relationships between path analysis, factor analysis, and structural equation modeling more easily. A few sections of the book make use of elementary matrix algebra. An appendix on the topic is provided for those who need a review. The author maintains an informal style so as to increase the book's accessibility. Notes at the end of each chapter provide some of the more technical details. The book is not tied to a particular computer program, but special attention is paid to LISREL, EQS, AMOS, and Mx. New in the fourth edition of Latent Variable Models: *a data CD that features the correlation and covariance matrices used in the exercises; *new sections on missing data, non-normality, mediation, factorial invariance, and automating the construction of path diagrams; and *reorganization of chapters 3-7 to enhance the flow of the book and its flexibility for teaching. Intended for advanced students and researchers in the areas of social, educational, clinical, industrial, consumer, personality, and developmental psychology, sociology, political science, and marketing, some prior familiarity with correlation and regression is helpful.

Download or read book Targeted Learning written by Mark J. van der Laan and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2011-06-17 with total page 628 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The statistics profession is at a unique point in history. The need for valid statistical tools is greater than ever; data sets are massive, often measuring hundreds of thousands of measurements for a single subject. The field is ready to move towards clear objective benchmarks under which tools can be evaluated. Targeted learning allows (1) the full generalization and utilization of cross-validation as an estimator selection tool so that the subjective choices made by humans are now made by the machine, and (2) targeting the fitting of the probability distribution of the data toward the target parameter representing the scientific question of interest. This book is aimed at both statisticians and applied researchers interested in causal inference and general effect estimation for observational and experimental data. Part I is an accessible introduction to super learning and the targeted maximum likelihood estimator, including related concepts necessary to understand and apply these methods. Parts II-IX handle complex data structures and topics applied researchers will immediately recognize from their own research, including time-to-event outcomes, direct and indirect effects, positivity violations, case-control studies, censored data, longitudinal data, and genomic studies.

Download or read book Conceptual Econometrics Using R written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 330 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Conceptual Econometrics Using R, Volume 41 provides state-of-the-art information on important topics in econometrics, including quantitative game theory, multivariate GARCH, stochastic frontiers, fractional responses, specification testing and model selection, exogeneity testing, causal analysis and forecasting, GMM models, asset bubbles and crises, corporate investments, classification, forecasting, nonstandard problems, cointegration, productivity and financial market jumps and co-jumps, among others. Presents chapters authored by distinguished, honored researchers who have received awards from the Journal of Econometrics or the Econometric Society Includes descriptions and links to resources and free open source R, allowing readers to not only use the tools on their own data, but also jumpstart their understanding of the state-of-the-art

Download or read book Automatic Discovery of Latent Variable Models written by Ricardo Silva and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Abstract: "Much of our understanding of Nature comes from theories about unobservable entities. Identifying which hidden variables exist given measurements in the observable world is therefore an important step in the process of discovery. Such an enterprise is only possible if the existence of latent factors constrains how the observable world can behave. We do not speak of atoms, genes and antibodies because we see them, but because they indirectly explain observable phenomena in a unique way under generally accepted assumptions. How to formalize the process of discovering latent variables and models associated with them is the goal of this thesis. More than finding a good probabilistic model that fits the data well, we describe how, in some situations, we can identify causal features common to all models that equally explain the data. Such common features describe causal relations among observed and hidden variables. Although this goal might seem ambitious, it is a natural extension of several years of work in discovering causal models from observational data through the use of graphical models. Learning causal relations without experiments basically amounts to discovering an unobservable fact (does A cause B?) from observable measurements (the joint distribution of a set of variables that include A and B). We take this idea one step further by discovering which hidden variables exist to begin with. More specifically, we describe algorithms for learning causal latent variable models when observed variables are noisy linear measurements of unobservable entities, without postulating a priori which latents might exist. Most of the thesis concerns how to identify latents by describing which observed variables are their respective measurements. In some situations, we will also assume that latents are linearly dependent, and in this case causal relations among latents can be partially identified. While continuous variables are the main focus of the thesis, we also describe how to adapt this idea to the case where observed variables are ordinal or binary. Finally, we examine density estimation, where knowing causal relations or the true model behind a data generating process is not necessary. However, we illustrate how ideas developed in causal discovery can help the design of algorithms for multivariate density estimation."

Download or read book Machine Learning for Causal Inference written by Sheng Li and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-11-25 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a deep understanding of the relationship between machine learning and causal inference. It covers a broad range of topics, starting with the preliminary foundations of causal inference, which include basic definitions, illustrative examples, and assumptions. It then delves into the different types of classical causal inference methods, such as matching, weighting, tree-based models, and more. Additionally, the book explores how machine learning can be used for causal effect estimation based on representation learning and graph learning. The contribution of causal inference in creating trustworthy machine learning systems to accomplish diversity, non-discrimination and fairness, transparency and explainability, generalization and robustness, and more is also discussed. The book also provides practical applications of causal inference in various domains such as natural language processing, recommender systems, computer vision, time series forecasting, and continual learning. Each chapter of the book is written by leading researchers in their respective fields. Machine Learning for Causal Inference explores the challenges associated with the relationship between machine learning and causal inference, such as biased estimates of causal effects, untrustworthy models, and complicated applications in other artificial intelligence domains. However, it also presents potential solutions to these issues. The book is a valuable resource for researchers, teachers, practitioners, and students interested in these fields. It provides insights into how combining machine learning and causal inference can improve the system's capability to accomplish causal artificial intelligence based on data. The book showcases promising research directions and emphasizes the importance of understanding the causal relationship to construct different machine-learning models from data.

Download or read book Handbook of Latent Variable and Related Models written by and published by Elsevier. This book was released on 2011-08-11 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook covers latent variable models, which are a flexible class of models for modeling multivariate data to explore relationships among observed and latent variables. - Covers a wide class of important models - Models and statistical methods described provide tools for analyzing a wide spectrum of complicated data - Includes illustrative examples with real data sets from business, education, medicine, public health and sociology. - Demonstrates the use of a wide variety of statistical, computational, and mathematical techniques.

Download or read book Latent Variable Modeling Using R written by A. Alexander Beaujean and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-05-09 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This step-by-step guide is written for R and latent variable model (LVM) novices. Utilizing a path model approach and focusing on the lavaan package, this book is designed to help readers quickly understand LVMs and their analysis in R. The author reviews the reasoning behind the syntax selected and provides examples that demonstrate how to analyze data for a variety of LVMs. Featuring examples applicable to psychology, education, business, and other social and health sciences, minimal text is devoted to theoretical underpinnings. The material is presented without the use of matrix algebra. As a whole the book prepares readers to write about and interpret LVM results they obtain in R. Each chapter features background information, boldfaced key terms defined in the glossary, detailed interpretations of R output, descriptions of how to write the analysis of results for publication, a summary, R based practice exercises (with solutions included in the back of the book), and references and related readings. Margin notes help readers better understand LVMs and write their own R syntax. Examples using data from published work across a variety of disciplines demonstrate how to use R syntax for analyzing and interpreting results. R functions, syntax, and the corresponding results appear in gray boxes to help readers quickly locate this material. A unique index helps readers quickly locate R functions, packages, and datasets. The book and accompanying website at http://blogs.baylor.edu/rlatentvariable/ provides all of the data for the book’s examples and exercises as well as R syntax so readers can replicate the analyses. The book reviews how to enter the data into R, specify the LVMs, and obtain and interpret the estimated parameter values. The book opens with the fundamentals of using R including how to download the program, use functions, and enter and manipulate data. Chapters 2 and 3 introduce and then extend path models to include latent variables. Chapter 4 shows readers how to analyze a latent variable model with data from more than one group, while Chapter 5 shows how to analyze a latent variable model with data from more than one time period. Chapter 6 demonstrates the analysis of dichotomous variables, while Chapter 7 demonstrates how to analyze LVMs with missing data. Chapter 8 focuses on sample size determination using Monte Carlo methods, which can be used with a wide range of statistical models and account for missing data. The final chapter examines hierarchical LVMs, demonstrating both higher-order and bi-factor approaches. The book concludes with three Appendices: a review of common measures of model fit including their formulae and interpretation; syntax for other R latent variable models packages; and solutions for each chapter’s exercises. Intended as a supplementary text for graduate and/or advanced undergraduate courses on latent variable modeling, factor analysis, structural equation modeling, item response theory, measurement, or multivariate statistics taught in psychology, education, human development, business, economics, and social and health sciences, this book also appeals to researchers in these fields. Prerequisites include familiarity with basic statistical concepts, but knowledge of R is not assumed.

Download or read book Multivariate Analysis with LISREL written by Karl G. Jöreskog and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-10-17 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book traces the theory and methodology of multivariate statistical analysis and shows how it can be conducted in practice using the LISREL computer program. It presents not only the typical uses of LISREL, such as confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation models, but also several other multivariate analysis topics, including regression (univariate, multivariate, censored, logistic, and probit), generalized linear models, multilevel analysis, and principal component analysis. It provides numerous examples from several disciplines and discusses and interprets the results, illustrated with sections of output from the LISREL program, in the context of the example. The book is intended for masters and PhD students and researchers in the social, behavioral, economic and many other sciences who require a basic understanding of multivariate statistical theory and methods for their analysis of multivariate data. It can also be used as a textbook on various topics of multivariate statistical analysis.

Download or read book An Introduction to Causal Inference written by Judea Pearl and published by Createspace Independent Publishing Platform. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This paper summarizes recent advances in causal inference and underscores the paradigmatic shifts that must be undertaken in moving from traditional statistical analysis to causal analysis of multivariate data. Special emphasis is placed on the assumptions that underly all causal inferences, the languages used in formulating those assumptions, the conditional nature of all causal and counterfactual claims, and the methods that have been developed for the assessment of such claims. These advances are illustrated using a general theory of causation based on the Structural Causal Model (SCM) described in Pearl (2000a), which subsumes and unifies other approaches to causation, and provides a coherent mathematical foundation for the analysis of causes and counterfactuals. In particular, the paper surveys the development of mathematical tools for inferring (from a combination of data and assumptions) answers to three types of causal queries: (1) queries about the effects of potential interventions, (also called "causal effects" or "policy evaluation") (2) queries about probabilities of counterfactuals, (including assessment of "regret," "attribution" or "causes of effects") and (3) queries about direct and indirect effects (also known as "mediation"). Finally, the paper defines the formal and conceptual relationships between the structural and potential-outcome frameworks and presents tools for a symbiotic analysis that uses the strong features of both. The tools are demonstrated in the analyses of mediation, causes of effects, and probabilities of causation. -- p. 1.

Download or read book Estimation and Application of Latent Variable Models in Categorical Data Analysis written by S. O. Leung and published by . This book was released on 1990 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Latent Variable Models and Factor Analysis written by David J. Bartholomew and published by Wiley. This book was released on 1999-08-10 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hitherto latent variable modelling has hovered on the fringes of the statistical mainstream but if the purpose of statistics is to deal with real problems, there is every reason for it to move closer to centre stage. In the social sciences especially, latent variables are common and if they are to be handled in a truly scientific manner, statistical theory must be developed to include them. This book aims to show how that should be done. This second edition is a complete re-working of the book of the same name which appeared in the Griffin’s Statistical Monographs in 1987. Since then there has been a surge of interest in latent variable methods which has necessitated a radical revision of the material but the prime object of the book remains the same. It provides a unified and coherent treatment of the field from a statistical perspective. This is achieved by setting up a sufficiently general framework to enable the derivation of the commonly used models. The subsequent analysis is then done wholly within the realm of probability calculus and the theory of statistical inference. Numerical examples are provided as well as the software to carry them out ( where this is not otherwise available). Additional data sets are provided in some cases so that the reader can aquire a wider experience of analysis and interpretation.

Download or read book Causal Analysis written by Lawrence R. James and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 1982-10 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses specifically on confirmatory analysis - a quantitative technique used to illuminate causal relationships among organizational phenomena. The authors outline the conditions that must be met if causal inferences are to be drawn from nonexperimental data, and offer new tests for determining whether data meet those conditions. While analytic models and techniques of confirmatory analysis are stressed here, the authors also emphasize the importance of strong, well-developed theory as a prerequisite to the appropriate application of these powerful (but easily misused) tools.

Download or read book A Statistical Evaluation of Latent Variable Score Estimation from Simple and Complex Item Response Models written by Pega Davoudzadeh and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Integrative Data Analysis (IDA; Curran & Hussong, 2009) refers to the practice of obtaining multiple data sets, scaling the observed variables and/or items measuring common constructs to a common scale, and combining them in order to analyze them as one single data set. The benefits of analyzing the pooled dataset include increased sample size, thus increased power, increased sample heterogeneity to parse within- and between-study variance, and an opportunity to establish psychological ideals through the accumulation of similar studies (Hussong, Curran, & Bauer, 2013). However, there remain a number of methodological issues associated with IDA. One of the challenges is making sure measures are comparable across studies to ensure that the multiple data sets can in fact be combined. This depends on a number of things including whether the same constructs were measured, whether the same measures were used, and whether there is a method to equate the measures across data sets. If all the necessary conditions are met, depending on the available data, a first step is to estimate latent variable scores using an appropriate measurement model. Once this has been done, IDA can proceed. In Chapter 1, I give an overview of integrative data analysis. I talk about advantages and disadvantages of IDA compared to other research synthesis techniques, evaluating measurement equivalence of common measures across studies, scaling different measures to be on a common metric, and typical models used to estimate latent variable scores. In Chapter 2, I present results of a Monte Carlo Simulation Study that evaluated different approaches to estimating latent variable scores. Results suggest that a single-group model or multiple-group model with equal latent variable means and standard deviations across groups lead to more accurate latent variable score estimates compared to using a multiple-group model with latent variable means and standard deviations allowed to vary across groups. In Chapter 3, I present results from an extension of the Monte Carlo Simulation Study, presented in Chapter 2, to longitudinal multiple-group data. In line with the results from Chapter 2, the single-group model provides the most efficient method for estimating latent variable scores as an initial step in IDA. In Chapter 4, I apply IDS methods to five longitudinal studies assessing violence among adults with mental illness to investigate how psychiatric symptoms affect violence perpetration over time. Results suggest psychotic symptoms and violence perpetration are stable over time and that affect related psychotic symptoms led to increases in future violence perpetration among adults with mental illness. Finally, in Chapter 5 I provide some general concluding remarks regarding IDA methodology.

Download or read book Essays on Statistical Learning and Causal Inference on Panel Data written by Ruoxuan Xiong and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Panel data that provides multiple observations on each individual over time has become widely available and received growing interests in many domains. For example, in asset pricing, panel data on asset returns over time is central in the study of how financial assets, such as stocks, bonds, and futures, are priced. In public policy, panel data is valuable in estimating and analyzing economic and social policies' effects. Panel data can improve the power of analyses, uncover dynamic relationships of variables, and generate more accurate predictions for individual outcomes. The growing interests of panel data in empirical research have proliferated the studies of new methodologies. In the first part of this thesis, we demonstrate several novel statistical inference methods on large-dimensional panel data with a large number of units and time periods. An effective method to summarize the information in large-dimensional panel data is the factor model that has been successfully used in asset pricing, recommendation systems, and many other topics. We focus on the latent factor models where the factors are unobserved and estimated from the data. Latent factor models can address the model misspecification concern, i.e., we could not fully observe all covariates that affect the outcome. However, latent factors are hard to interpret because they are usually the weighted average of all units. We propose sparse proximate factors for latent factors. Sparse proximate factors are constructed from a few units with the largest signal-to-noise ratio that can approximate latent factors well while being interpretable. When the panel data spans a long time horizon, such as macroeconomic data, it is restrictive to assume the factor structure is static. We generalize the factor structure to depend on some observed state process. For example, the factor model in stock return data can change with the business cycle. We provide an estimator for this state-varying factor model and develop its inferential theory. Many studies in social sciences and healthcare try to answer questions about causal relationships beyond statistical analysis. Many of these studies rely on observational data when running experiments is infeasible, and observational panel data has received more attention because panel data can capture the changes with units over time. A fundamental question to estimate the causal effects from observational data is to estimate the counterfactual outcomes that can be modeled as the missing observations. We connect large-dimensional factor modeling with causal inference. Specifically, we provide an estimator for the latent factor model on large-dimensional panel data with missing observations and derive the inferential theory for our estimator that can be used to test the effect of a treatment at any time and general weighted treatments. An alternative approach to study the treatment effect is to run experiments, which is the gold standard in medical and clinical research and has become increasingly popular to test new products in large technology companies. In the second part of this thesis, we study optimal multi-period experimental design to increase the statistical power, which is a common hurdle in designing experiments. We show that the structure of the multi-period experimental design depends on how long the effect of interventions last. In the presence of pre-experimentation data, we can further optimize our treatment designs and hence reduce the number of required samples, which means lowering the experiment cost.

Download or read book Multilevel Modeling written by Steven P. Reise and published by Psychology Press. This book was released on 2003-01-30 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book appeals to researchers who work with nested data structures or repeated measures data, including biomed & health researchers, clinical/intervention researchers and developmental & educational psychologists. Also some potential as a grad lvl tex