Identification of causal effects in linear models: beyond instrumental variables

Elena Stanghellini, Eduwin Pakpahan

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

6 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The instrumental variable (IV) formula has become widely used to address the issue of identification of a causal effect in linear systems with an unobserved variable that acts as direct confounder. We here propose two alternative formulations to achieve identification when the assumptions underlying the use of IV are violated. Parallel to the IV, the proposed formulas exploit the conditional independence structure of a directed acyclic graph and can be obtained via a series of univariate regressions, a feature that renders the results particularly attractive and easy to implement. By exploiting the notion of Markov equivalence, the derivations can also be applied to regression graphs, thereby enlarging the class of models to which the results are of use.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)489-509
Number of pages21
JournalTest
Volume24
Issue number3
Early online date6 Dec 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2015
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Causal effect
  • Confounder
  • Directed acyclic graph
  • Identification
  • Latent variable
  • Regression graph
  • Structural equation model

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