IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/1812.09487.html

Modified Causal Forests for Estimating Heterogeneous Causal Effects

Author

Listed:
  • Michael Lechner

Abstract

Uncovering the heterogeneity of causal effects of policies and business decisions at various levels of granularity provides substantial value to decision makers. This paper develops new estimation and inference procedures for multiple treatment models in a selection-on-observables framework by modifying the Causal Forest approach suggested by Wager and Athey (2018) in several dimensions. The new estimators have desirable theoretical, computational and practical properties for various aggregation levels of the causal effects. While an Empirical Monte Carlo study suggests that they outperform previously suggested estimators, an application to the evaluation of an active labour market programme shows the value of the new methods for applied research.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael Lechner, 2018. "Modified Causal Forests for Estimating Heterogeneous Causal Effects," Papers 1812.09487, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:1812.09487
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1812.09487
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Sokbae Lee & Ryo Okui & Yoon†Jae Whang, 2017. "Doubly robust uniform confidence band for the conditional average treatment effect function," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(7), pages 1207-1225, November.
    2. Lechner, Michael & Wunsch, Conny, 2013. "Sensitivity of matching-based program evaluations to the availability of control variables," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 111-121.
    3. Stefan Wager & Susan Athey, 2018. "Estimation and Inference of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects using Random Forests," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 113(523), pages 1228-1242, July.
    4. Anthony Strittmatter, 2018. "What Is the Value Added by Using Causal Machine Learning Methods in a Welfare Experiment Evaluation?," Papers 1812.06533, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2021.
    5. Xinkun Nie & Stefan Wager, 2017. "Quasi-Oracle Estimation of Heterogeneous Treatment Effects," Papers 1712.04912, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2020.
    6. Advani, Arun & Sloczynski, Tymon, 2013. "Mostly Harmless Simulations? On the Internal Validity of Empirical Monte Carlo Studies," IZA Discussion Papers 7874, IZA Network @ LISER.
    7. Susan Athey & Julie Tibshirani & Stefan Wager, 2016. "Generalized Random Forests," Papers 1610.01271, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2018.
    8. Michael Lechner & Anthony Strittmatter, 2019. "Practical procedures to deal with common support problems in matching estimation," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2), pages 193-207, February.
    9. Vikas Ramachandra, 2018. "Deep Learning for Causal Inference," Papers 1803.00149, arXiv.org.
    10. Jason Abrevaya & Yu-Chin Hsu & Robert P. Lieli, 2015. "Estimating Conditional Average Treatment Effects," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(4), pages 485-505, October.
    11. Susan Athey & Guido W. Imbens, 2017. "The State of Applied Econometrics: Causality and Policy Evaluation," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 3-32, Spring.
    12. Huber, Martin & Lechner, Michael & Wunsch, Conny, 2013. "The performance of estimators based on the propensity score," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 175(1), pages 1-21.
    13. Alexandre Belloni & Victor Chernozhukov & Ying Wei, 2016. "Post-Selection Inference for Generalized Linear Models With Many Controls," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 606-619, October.
    14. Miruna Oprescu & Vasilis Syrgkanis & Zhiwei Steven Wu, 2018. "Orthogonal Random Forest for Causal Inference," Papers 1806.03467, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2019.
    15. Matt Taddy & Matt Gardner & Liyun Chen & David Draper, 2016. "A Nonparametric Bayesian Analysis of Heterogenous Treatment Effects in Digital Experimentation," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(4), pages 661-672, October.
    16. Guido W. Imbens, 2004. "Nonparametric Estimation of Average Treatment Effects Under Exogeneity: A Review," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(1), pages 4-29, February.
    17. Shuai Chen & Lu Tian & Tianxi Cai & Menggang Yu, 2017. "A general statistical framework for subgroup identification and comparative treatment scoring," Biometrics, The International Biometric Society, vol. 73(4), pages 1199-1209, December.
    18. Michael C. Knaus & Michael Lechner & Anthony Strittmatter, 2022. "Heterogeneous Employment Effects of Job Search Programs: A Machine Learning Approach," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(2), pages 597-636.
    19. Michael Gerfin & Michael Lechner, 2002. "A Microeconometric Evaluation of the Active Labour Market Policy in Switzerland," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(482), pages 854-893, October.
    20. Lu Tian & Ash A. Alizadeh & Andrew J. Gentles & Robert Tibshirani, 2014. "A Simple Method for Estimating Interactions Between a Treatment and a Large Number of Covariates," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 109(508), pages 1517-1532, December.
    21. Martin Huber & Michael Lechner & Giovanni Mellace, 2017. "Why Do Tougher Caseworkers Increase Employment? The Role of Program Assignment as a Causal Mechanism," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(1), pages 180-183, March.
    22. A. Belloni & V. Chernozhukov & I. Fernández‐Val & C. Hansen, 2017. "Program Evaluation and Causal Inference With High‐Dimensional Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 85, pages 233-298, January.
    23. Arun Advani & Toru Kitagawa & Tymon Słoczyński, 2019. "Mostly harmless simulations? Using Monte Carlo studies for estimator selection," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(6), pages 893-910, September.
    24. Alberto Abadie & Guido W. Imbens, 2006. "Large Sample Properties of Matching Estimators for Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(1), pages 235-267, January.
    25. Jonathan M.V. Davis & Sara B. Heller, 2017. "Using Causal Forests to Predict Treatment Heterogeneity: An Application to Summer Jobs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 546-550, May.
    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. Michael Lechner & Jana Mareckova, 2022. "Modified Causal Forest," Papers 2209.03744, arXiv.org.
    2. Michael C Knaus & Michael Lechner & Anthony Strittmatter, 2021. "Machine learning estimation of heterogeneous causal effects: Empirical Monte Carlo evidence," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 24(1), pages 134-161.
    3. Michael C Knaus, 2022. "Double machine learning-based programme evaluation under unconfoundedness [Econometric methods for program evaluation]," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 25(3), pages 602-627.
    4. Gabriel Okasa, 2022. "Meta-Learners for Estimation of Causal Effects: Finite Sample Cross-Fit Performance," Papers 2201.12692, arXiv.org.
    5. Riccardo Di Francesco, 2022. "Aggregation Trees," CEIS Research Paper 546, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 20 Nov 2023.
    6. Ganesh Karapakula, 2023. "Stable Probability Weighting: Large-Sample and Finite-Sample Estimation and Inference Methods for Heterogeneous Causal Effects of Multivalued Treatments Under Limited Overlap," Papers 2301.05703, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2023.
    7. Strittmatter, Anthony, 2023. "What is the value added by using causal machine learning methods in a welfare experiment evaluation?," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    8. Michael Lechner & Jana Mareckova, 2024. "Comprehensive Causal Machine Learning," Papers 2405.10198, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2025.
    9. Michael C. Knaus & Michael Lechner & Anthony Strittmatter, 2022. "Heterogeneous Employment Effects of Job Search Programs: A Machine Learning Approach," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 57(2), pages 597-636.
    10. Athey, Susan & Imbens, Guido W. & Metzger, Jonas & Munro, Evan, 2024. "Using Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Networks for the design of Monte Carlo simulations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 240(2).
    11. Phillip Heiler & Michael C. Knaus, 2021. "Effect or Treatment Heterogeneity? Policy Evaluation with Aggregated and Disaggregated Treatments," Papers 2110.01427, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2023.
    12. Goller, Daniel & Lechner, Michael & Pongratz, Tamara & Wolff, Joachim, 2025. "Active labor market policies for the long-term unemployed: New evidence from causal machine learning," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(C).
    13. Miller, Steve, 2020. "Causal forest estimation of heterogeneous and time-varying environmental policy effects," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 103(C).
    14. Hugo Bodory & Martin Huber & Michael Lechner, 2024. "The Finite Sample Performance of Instrumental Variable-Based Estimators of the Local Average Treatment Effect When Controlling for Covariates," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 64(4), pages 2053-2078, October.
    15. Nora Bearth & Michael Lechner, 2024. "Causal Machine Learning for Moderation Effects," Papers 2401.08290, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2025.
    16. Anthony Strittmatter, 2018. "What Is the Value Added by Using Causal Machine Learning Methods in a Welfare Experiment Evaluation?," Papers 1812.06533, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2021.
    17. Martin Huber & Michael Lechner & Giovanni Mellace, 2017. "Why Do Tougher Caseworkers Increase Employment? The Role of Program Assignment as a Causal Mechanism," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(1), pages 180-183, March.
    18. Buhl-Wiggers, Julie & Kerwin, Jason T. & Muñoz-Morales, Juan & Smith, Jeffrey & Thornton, Rebecca, 2024. "Some children left behind: Variation in the effects of an educational intervention," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 243(1).
    19. Rahul Singh & Liyuan Xu & Arthur Gretton, 2020. "Kernel Methods for Causal Functions: Dose, Heterogeneous, and Incremental Response Curves," Papers 2010.04855, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2022.
    20. Goller, Daniel & Lechner, Michael & Moczall, Andreas & Wolff, Joachim, 2020. "Does the estimation of the propensity score by machine learning improve matching estimation? The case of Germany's programmes for long term unemployed," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • J68 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Public Policy

    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:1812.09487. 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: https://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.