scholarly journals Generic Machine Learning Inference on Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in Randomized Experiments, with an Application to Immunization in India

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Chernozhukov ◽  
Mert Demirer ◽  
Esther Duflo ◽  
Iván Fernández-Val
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Treatment Effects ◽  
Randomized Experiments ◽  
Heterogeneous Treatment Effects

Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects and the Effects of Heterogeneous Treatments with Ensemble Methods

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 413-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Grimmer ◽  
Solomon Messing ◽  
Sean J. Westwood
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Effects ◽  
Ensemble Methods ◽  
Ensemble Method ◽  
Superior Performance ◽  
Accurate Estimation ◽  
Randomized Experiments ◽  
Heterogeneous Treatment Effects ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Heterogeneous Effects ◽  
The Ensemble Method

Randomized experiments are increasingly used to study political phenomena because they can credibly estimate the average effect of a treatment on a population of interest. But political scientists are often interested in how effects vary across subpopulations—heterogeneous treatment effects—and how differences in the content of the treatment affects responses—the response to heterogeneous treatments. Several new methods have been introduced to estimate heterogeneous effects, but it is difficult to know if a method will perform well for a particular data set. Rather than using only one method, we show how an ensemble of methods—weighted averages of estimates from individual models increasingly used in machine learning—accurately measure heterogeneous effects. Building on a large literature on ensemble methods, we show how the weighting of methods can contribute to accurate estimation of heterogeneous treatment effects and demonstrate how pooling models lead to superior performance to individual methods across diverse problems. We apply the ensemble method to two experiments, illuminating how the ensemble method for heterogeneous treatment effects facilitates exploratory analysis of treatment effects.

scholarly journals Metalearners for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects using machine learning

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (10) ◽  
pp. 4156-4165 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sören R. Künzel ◽  
Jasjeet S. Sekhon ◽  
Peter J. Bickel ◽  
Bin Yu
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Treatment Effects ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Average Treatment Effect ◽  
Regularity Conditions ◽  
Heterogeneous Treatment Effects ◽  
Lipschitz Continuous ◽  
Additive Regression ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms ◽  
And Control

There is growing interest in estimating and analyzing heterogeneous treatment effects in experimental and observational studies. We describe a number of metaalgorithms that can take advantage of any supervised learning or regression method in machine learning and statistics to estimate the conditional average treatment effect (CATE) function. Metaalgorithms build on base algorithms—such as random forests (RFs), Bayesian additive regression trees (BARTs), or neural networks—to estimate the CATE, a function that the base algorithms are not designed to estimate directly. We introduce a metaalgorithm, the X-learner, that is provably efficient when the number of units in one treatment group is much larger than in the other and can exploit structural properties of the CATE function. For example, if the CATE function is linear and the response functions in treatment and control are Lipschitz-continuous, the X-learner can still achieve the parametric rate under regularity conditions. We then introduce versions of the X-learner that use RF and BART as base learners. In extensive simulation studies, the X-learner performs favorably, although none of the metalearners is uniformly the best. In two persuasion field experiments from political science, we demonstrate how our X-learner can be used to target treatment regimes and to shed light on underlying mechanisms. A software package is provided that implements our methods.

scholarly journals Hybridizing Machine Learning Methods and Finite Mixture Models for Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in Latent Classes

2020 ◽  
pp. 107699862095198
Author(s):  
Youmi Suk ◽  
Jee-Seon Kim ◽  
Hyunseung Kang
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Treatment Effects ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Finite Mixture Models ◽  
Likelihood Estimation ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Latent Class Models ◽  
Finite Mixture ◽  
Latent Classes ◽  
Heterogeneous Treatment Effects

There has been increasing interest in exploring heterogeneous treatment effects using machine learning (ML) methods such as causal forests, Bayesian additive regression trees, and targeted maximum likelihood estimation. However, there is little work on applying these methods to estimate treatment effects in latent classes defined by well-established finite mixture/latent class models. This article proposes a hybrid method, a combination of finite mixture modeling and ML methods from causal inference to discover effect heterogeneity in latent classes. Our simulation study reveals that hybrid ML methods produced more precise and accurate estimates of treatment effects in latent classes. We also use hybrid ML methods to estimate the differential effects of private lessons across latent classes from Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study data.

scholarly journals Generic machine learning inference on heterogenous treatment effects in randomized experiments

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mert Demirer ◽  
Esther Duflo ◽  
Ivan Fernandez-Val ◽  
Victor Chernozhukov
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Treatment Effects ◽  
Randomized Experiments

scholarly journals Hybridizing Machine Learning Methods and Finite Mixture Models for Estimating Heterogeneous Treatment Effects in Latent Classes

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Youmi Suk ◽  
Jee-Seon Kim ◽  
Hyunseung Kang
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Treatment Effects ◽  
Latent Class ◽  
Finite Mixture Models ◽  
Likelihood Estimation ◽  
Latent Class Models ◽  
Finite Mixture ◽  
Latent Classes ◽  
Heterogeneous Treatment Effects ◽  
Private Lessons

There has been increasing interest in exploring heterogeneous treatment effects using machine learning (ML) methods such as Causal Forests, Bayesian Additive Regression Trees (BART), and Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation (TMLE). However, there is little work on applying these methods to estimate treatment effects in latent classes defined by well-established finite mixture/latent class models. This paper proposes a hybrid method, a combination of finite mixture modeling and ML methods from causal inference to discover effect heterogeneity in latent classes. Our simulation study reveals that hybrid ML methods produced more precise and accurate estimates of treatment effects in latent classes. We also use hybrid ML methods to estimate the differential effects of private lessons across latent classes from the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) data.

scholarly journals Estimation of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects from Randomized Experiments, with Application to the Optimal Planning of the Get-Out-the-Vote Campaign

2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kosuke Imai ◽  
Aaron Strauss
Keyword(s):  
Treatment Effects ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Randomized Experiments ◽  
Heterogeneous Treatment Effects ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Current State ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Post Hoc ◽  
Get Out The Vote

Although a growing number of political scientists are conducting randomized experiments, many of them only report the average treatment effects and do not systematically explore the variation in treatment effects across subpopulations. This is unfortunate from a scientific point of view because heterogeneous treatment effects can provide additional substantive insights. This current state of affairs is also problematic from a policy makers' perspective since such studies do not identify subgroups for which treatments are effective. In this paper, we propose a formal two-step framework that first identifies heterogeneous treatment effects from a randomized experiment and then uses this information to derive an optimal policy about which treatment should be given to whom. Our proposed method avoids the risk of false discoveries that are likely in post hoc subgroup analysis routinely conducted in the discipline. We discuss our methodology in the context of get-out-the-vote randomized field experiments and show how the proposed two-step framework can be applied in real-world settings.

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