Cyclic Counterfactuals under Shift-Scale Interventions

Saptarshi Saha; Dhruv Vansraj Rathore; Utpal Garain

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arXiv · 2510.25005

Cyclic Counterfactuals under Shift-Scale Interventions

Saptarshi Saha·Dhruv Vansraj Rathore·Utpal Garain

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Abstract

Most counterfactual inference frameworks traditionally assume acyclic structural causal models (SCMs), i.e. directed acyclic graphs (DAGs). However, many real-world systems (e.g. biological systems) contain feedback loops or cyclic dependencies that violate acyclicity. In this work, we study counterfactual inference in cyclic SCMs under shift-scale interventions, i.e., soft, policy-style changes that rescale and/or shift a variable's mechanism.

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Saptarshi Saha, Dhruv Vansraj Rathore, Utpal Garain. 2025-10-28. Cyclic Counterfactuals under Shift-Scale Interventions. https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.25005

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