Causal inference through multi-stage learning and doubly robust deep neural networks
This addresses causal inference problems for researchers and practitioners, offering incremental improvements through theoretical extensions to existing methods.
The study tackles complex causal inference tasks like conditional average treatment effect estimation by using multi-stage learning with doubly robust deep neural networks, providing theoretical guarantees for high-dimensional settings where dimensionality grows with sample size.
Deep neural networks (DNNs) have demonstrated remarkable empirical performance in large-scale supervised learning problems, particularly in scenarios where both the sample size $n$ and the dimension of covariates $p$ are large. This study delves into the application of DNNs across a wide spectrum of intricate causal inference tasks, where direct estimation falls short and necessitates multi-stage learning. Examples include estimating the conditional average treatment effect and dynamic treatment effect. In this framework, DNNs are constructed sequentially, with subsequent stages building upon preceding ones. To mitigate the impact of estimation errors from early stages on subsequent ones, we integrate DNNs in a doubly robust manner. In contrast to previous research, our study offers theoretical assurances regarding the effectiveness of DNNs in settings where the dimensionality $p$ expands with the sample size. These findings are significant independently and extend to degenerate single-stage learning problems.