Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 1707.01723

Stein-like Estimators for Causal Mediation Analysis in Randomized Trials

Cedric E. Ginestet·Richard Emsley·Sabine Landau
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

Causal mediation analysis aims to estimate the natural direct and indirect effects under clearly specified assumptions. Traditional mediation analysis based on Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) relies on the absence of unmeasured causes of the putative mediator and outcome. When this assumption cannot be justified, Instrumental Variables (IV) estimators can be used in order to produce an asymptotically unbiased estimator of the mediator-outcome link. However, provided that valid instruments exist, bias removal comes at the cost of variance inflation for standard IV procedures such as Two-Stage Least Squares (TSLS). A Semi-Parametric Stein-Like (SPSL) estimator has been proposed in the literature that strikes a natural trade-off between the unbiasedness of the TSLS procedure and the relatively small variance of the OLS estimator. Moreover, the SPSL has the advantage that its shrinkage parameter can be directly estimated from the data. In this paper, we demonstrate how this Stein-like estimator can be implemented in the context of the estimation of natural direct and natural indirect effects of treatments in randomized controlled trials. The performance of the competing methods is studied in a simulation study, in which both the strength of hidden confounding and the strength of the instruments are independently varied. These considerations are motivated by a trial in mental health evaluating the impact of a primary care-based intervention to reduce depression in the elderly.

Explore related subjects

stat.ME

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Cedric E. Ginestet, Richard Emsley, Sabine Landau. 2017-07-06. Stein-like Estimators for Causal Mediation Analysis in Randomized Trials. https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.01723

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Surprise Reduction and Nullification in Bayesian and Inverse Bayesian Inference under Ambiguous Prediction-Error Attribution

In non-stationary environments, prediction errors may signal environmental change or transient outliers, and adaptive systems must track such changes without overreacting to outliers. We distinguish surprise reduction, which updates beliefs to fit observations, from surprise nullification, which weakens constraints imposed by the predictive structure, and formalize both within Bayesian and inverse Bayesian (BIB) inference. Belief and likelihood updates are derived from variational objectives sharing a nullification strength, determined endogenously by minimizing surprise under the candidate post-update predictive distribution. In the Gaussian case, nullification expands belief and likelihood variances by a common factor relative to standard Bayesian updating, leaving the ratio unchanged. BIB thus defers attribution of the prediction error, committing to neither latent-state change nor observation-process uncertainty. The nullification strength is carried over as a candidate and is maintained or released according to the predictive surprise of the next observation. In a mean estimation task with outliers and changepoints, no scanned parameter setting of a Sage-Husa-type adaptive Kalman filter, fixed-strength BIB variant, or belief-forgetting-only variant outperforms BIB in both changepoint tracking and post-outlier stability. An oracle-informed reduced Bayesian model tracks changepoints better but is less stable after outliers. Although BIB maintains no explicit hypotheses about changepoints or outliers, it generates event-dependent dynamics. The learning rate increases after changepoints, whereas after outliers, nullification is released, and this increase is suppressed. Deferring attribution and letting subsequent observations differentiate the responses may constitute a principle of adaptive inference in non-stationary environments.

stat.ME↗
arXiv2026

Generalized Ridge Refitting for the Lasso and Prediction Improvement Bounds

We study a class of Lasso based estimators obtained by applying a quadratic correction on the Lasso equicorrelation set. The penalty matrix determines both the magnitude and geometry of the correction and contains, among other cases, the isotropic Lasso--Ridge correction, least squares refitting, Gram proportional interpolation between the Lasso and least squares, and coordinate specific penalties. We first derive a closed form representation and isolate the positive gain component of the resulting prediction improvement. We then control the remaining stochastic linear term in expectation by localizing the random signed equicorrelation model around a deterministic reference support. This yields a finite sample expectation bound that explicitly accounts for the randomness induced by Lasso model selection. The resulting decomposition provides a unified framework for understanding when Lasso based quadratic corrections can improve prediction.

stat.ME↗
arXiv2026

Discretization in covariate-adaptive randomization: gains and losses

Covariate-adaptive randomization(CAR) is widely implemented in clinical trials to balance prognostic covariates across treatment arms. Continuous covariates are often discretized into strata in practice, yet their consequences are not clearly understood. This paper provides a comprehensive study of the impact of discretization on both the CAR design process and the inferential results thereafter. We establish the asymptotic properties of both imbalance measures and treatment effect estimators under discretized and non-discretized settings. Practical recommendations are given on when and how discretization should be employed. We show that discretization in design is generally recommended, as it enhances robustness against model misspecification. However, if the true model is known, the most efficient strategy is to balance covariates according to that model in the design. The theoretical results are corroborated by extensive simulation studies and an empirical application to a diabetes trial dataset. Together, the results clarify the gains and losses of discretization in CAR and pave the way for learning impact of discretization to other designs and beyond.

stat.ME↗