IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2103.07066.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Finding Subgroups with Significant Treatment Effects

Author

Listed:
  • Jann Spiess
  • Vasilis Syrgkanis
  • Victor Yaneng Wang

Abstract

Researchers often run resource-intensive randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to estimate the causal effects of interventions on outcomes of interest. Yet these outcomes are often noisy, and estimated overall effects can be small or imprecise. Nevertheless, we may still be able to produce reliable evidence of the efficacy of an intervention by finding subgroups with significant effects. In this paper, we propose a machine-learning method that is specifically optimized for finding such subgroups in noisy data. Unlike available methods for personalized treatment assignment, our tool is fundamentally designed to take significance testing into account: it produces a subgroup that is chosen to maximize the probability of obtaining a statistically significant positive treatment effect. We provide a computationally efficient implementation using decision trees and demonstrate its gain over selecting subgroups based on positive (estimated) treatment effects. Compared to standard tree-based regression and classification tools, this approach tends to yield higher power in detecting subgroups affected by the treatment.

Suggested Citation

  • Jann Spiess & Vasilis Syrgkanis & Victor Yaneng Wang, 2021. "Finding Subgroups with Significant Treatment Effects," Papers 2103.07066, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2103.07066
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2103.07066
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Zhengyuan Zhou & Susan Athey & Stefan Wager, 2023. "Offline Multi-Action Policy Learning: Generalization and Optimization," Operations Research, INFORMS, vol. 71(1), pages 148-183, January.
    2. Rubin Daniel & van der Laan Mark J., 2007. "A Doubly Robust Censoring Unbiased Transformation," The International Journal of Biostatistics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 1-21, March.
    3. Edward H. Kennedy & Scott Lorch & Dylan S. Small, 2019. "Robust causal inference with continuous instruments using the local instrumental variable curve," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 81(1), pages 121-143, February.
    4. Miruna Oprescu & Vasilis Syrgkanis & Zhiwei Steven Wu, 2018. "Orthogonal Random Forest for Causal Inference," Papers 1806.03467, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2019.
    5. Susan Athey & Stefan Wager, 2021. "Policy Learning With Observational Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(1), pages 133-161, January.
    6. Victor Chernozhukov & Denis Nekipelov & Vira Semenova & Vasilis Syrgkanis, 2018. "Plug-in regularized estimation of high dimensional parameters in nonlinear semiparametric models," CeMMAP working papers CWP41/18, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    7. Raaz Dwivedi & Yan Shuo Tan & Briton Park & Mian Wei & Kevin Horgan & David Madigan & Bin Yu, 2020. "Stable Discovery of Interpretable Subgroups via Calibration in Causal Studies," International Statistical Review, International Statistical Institute, vol. 88(S1), pages 135-178, December.
    8. Athey, Susan & Wager, Stefan, 2017. "Efficient Policy Learning," Research Papers 3506, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    9. Victor Chernozhukov & Whitney K. Newey & James Robins, 2018. "Double/de-biased machine learning using regularized Riesz representers," CeMMAP working papers CWP15/18, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    10. Edward H. Kennedy & Zongming Ma & Matthew D. McHugh & Dylan S. Small, 2017. "Non-parametric methods for doubly robust estimation of continuous treatment effects," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 79(4), pages 1229-1245, September.
    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. 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.
    2. Kyle Colangelo & Ying-Ying Lee, 2019. "Double debiased machine learning nonparametric inference with continuous treatments," CeMMAP working papers CWP72/19, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    3. Kyle Colangelo & Ying-Ying Lee, 2019. "Double debiased machine learning nonparametric inference with continuous treatments," CeMMAP working papers CWP54/19, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    4. Garbero, Alessandra & Sakos, Grayson & Cerulli, Giovanni, 2023. "Towards data-driven project design: Providing optimal treatment rules for development projects," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    5. Susan Athey & Raj Chetty & Guido Imbens, 2020. "Combining Experimental and Observational Data to Estimate Treatment Effects on Long Term Outcomes," Papers 2006.09676, arXiv.org.
    6. Yiyan Huang & Cheuk Hang Leung & Xing Yan & Qi Wu & Nanbo Peng & Dongdong Wang & Zhixiang Huang, 2020. "The Causal Learning of Retail Delinquency," Papers 2012.09448, arXiv.org.
    7. 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.
    8. Kock, Anders Bredahl & Preinerstorfer, David & Veliyev, Bezirgen, 2023. "Treatment recommendation with distributional targets," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 624-646.
    9. Cockx, Bart & Lechner, Michael & Bollens, Joost, 2023. "Priority to unemployed immigrants? A causal machine learning evaluation of training in Belgium," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. Kyle Colangelo & Ying-Ying Lee, 2020. "Double Debiased Machine Learning Nonparametric Inference with Continuous Treatments," Papers 2004.03036, arXiv.org, revised Sep 2023.
    11. Weibin Mo & Yufeng Liu, 2022. "Efficient learning of optimal individualized treatment rules for heteroscedastic or misspecified treatment‐free effect models," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series B, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 84(2), pages 440-472, April.
    12. Shosei Sakaguchi, 2021. "Estimation of Optimal Dynamic Treatment Assignment Rules under Policy Constraints," Papers 2106.05031, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2024.
    13. Tobias Cagala & Ulrich Glogowsky & Johannes Rincke & Anthony Strittmatter, 2021. "Optimal Targeting in Fundraising: A Machine-Learning Approach," Economics working papers 2021-08, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    14. 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.
    15. Toru Kitagawa & Weining Wang & Mengshan Xu, 2022. "Policy Choice in Time Series by Empirical Welfare Maximization," Papers 2205.03970, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    16. Huber, Martin, 2019. "An introduction to flexible methods for policy evaluation," FSES Working Papers 504, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, University of Freiburg/Fribourg Switzerland.
    17. von Zahn, Moritz & Bauer, Kevin & Mihale-Wilson, Cristina & Jagow, Johanna & Speicher, Max & Hinz, Oliver, 2022. "The smart green nudge: Reducing product returns through enriched digital footprints & causal machine learning," SAFE Working Paper Series 363, Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE, revised 2022.
    18. Ruohan Zhan & Zhimei Ren & Susan Athey & Zhengyuan Zhou, 2021. "Policy Learning with Adaptively Collected Data," Papers 2105.02344, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2022.
    19. Rahul Singh, 2020. "Kernel Methods for Unobserved Confounding: Negative Controls, Proxies, and Instruments," Papers 2012.10315, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2023.
    20. Victor Chernozhukov & Whitney Newey & Rahul Singh & Vasilis Syrgkanis, 2020. "Adversarial Estimation of Riesz Representers," Papers 2101.00009, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:2103.07066. 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: http://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.