IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2404.01566.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Heterogeneous Treatment Effects and Causal Mechanisms

Author

Listed:
  • Jiawei Fu
  • Tara Slough

Abstract

The credibility revolution advances the use of research designs that permit identification and estimation of causal effects. However, understanding which mechanisms produce measured causal effects remains a challenge. A dominant current approach to the quantitative evaluation of mechanisms relies on the detection of heterogeneous treatment effects with respect to pre-treatment covariates. This paper develops a framework to understand when the existence of such heterogeneous treatment effects can support inferences about the activation of a mechanism. We show first that this design cannot provide evidence of mechanism activation without additional, generally implicit, assumptions. Further, even when these assumptions are satisfied, if a measured outcome is produced by a non-linear transformation of a directly-affected outcome of theoretical interest, heterogeneous treatment effects are not informative of mechanism activation. We provide novel guidance for interpretation and research design in light of these findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Jiawei Fu & Tara Slough, 2024. "Heterogeneous Treatment Effects and Causal Mechanisms," Papers 2404.01566, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2404.01566
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.01566
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Toru Kitagawa & Aleksey Tetenov, 2018. "Who Should Be Treated? Empirical Welfare Maximization Methods for Treatment Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(2), pages 591-616, March.
    2. Strezhnev, Anton & Kelley, Judith G. & Simmons, Beth A., 2021. "Testing for Negative Spillovers: Is Promoting Human Rights Really Part of the “Problem”?," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 71-102, January.
    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. 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.
    2. Yi Zhang & Kosuke Imai, 2023. "Individualized Policy Evaluation and Learning under Clustered Network Interference," Papers 2311.02467, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2024.
    3. Chen, Le-Yu & Lee, Sokbae, 2018. "Best subset binary prediction," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 206(1), pages 39-56.
    4. Manski, Charles F., 2023. "Probabilistic prediction for binary treatment choice: With focus on personalized medicine," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 234(2), pages 647-663.
    5. Eric Mbakop & Max Tabord‐Meehan, 2021. "Model Selection for Treatment Choice: Penalized Welfare Maximization," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(2), pages 825-848, March.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. Anders Bredahl Kock & Martin Thyrsgaard, 2017. "Optimal sequential treatment allocation," Papers 1705.09952, arXiv.org, revised Aug 2018.
    9. 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).
    10. Youngki Shin & Zvezdomir Todorov, 2021. "Exact computation of maximum rank correlation estimator," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 24(3), pages 589-607.
    11. Firpo, Sergio & Galvao, Antonio F. & Kobus, Martyna & Parker, Thomas & Rosa-Dias, Pedro, 2020. "Loss Aversion and the Welfare Ranking of Policy Interventions," IZA Discussion Papers 13176, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Charles F. Manski, 2020. "Towards Reasonable Patient Care Under Uncertainty," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 38(2), pages 227-245, April.
    13. Undral Byambadalai, 2022. "Identification and Inference for Welfare Gains without Unconfoundedness," Papers 2207.04314, arXiv.org.
    14. Isaiah Andrews & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2021. "A Model of Scientific Communication," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(5), pages 2117-2142, September.
    15. Stefano Caria & Grant Gordon & Maximilian Kasy & Simon Quinn & Soha Shami & Alexander Teytelboym, 2020. "An Adaptive Targeted Field Experiment: Job Search Assistance for Refugees in Jordan," CESifo Working Paper Series 8535, CESifo.
    16. Giovanni Cerulli, 2020. "Optimal Policy Learning: From Theory to Practice," Papers 2011.04993, arXiv.org.
    17. Isaiah Andrews & Toru Kitagawa & Adam McCloskey, 2024. "Inference on Winners," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 139(1), pages 305-358.
    18. Yuchen Hu & Henry Zhu & Emma Brunskill & Stefan Wager, 2024. "Minimax-Regret Sample Selection in Randomized Experiments," Papers 2403.01386, arXiv.org.
    19. Yusuke Narita, 2018. "Experiment-as-Market: Incorporating Welfare into Randomized Controlled Trials," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2127r, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University, revised May 2019.
    20. 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.

    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:2404.01566. 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.