Spectral Representation for Causal Estimation with Hidden Confounders
Accepted at AISTATS'25,
Abstract
We propose a method for causal effect estimation in settings with hidden confounders, via spectral representations derived from proxy variables. By formulating the problem in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space and leveraging operator-theoretic tools, we derive tractable estimators that recover causal effects without requiring direct access to the confounder. Our approach generalizes instrumental variable and proxy-based methods, and we demonstrate both theoretical guarantees and strong empirical performance across synthetic and real-world benchmarks.
Materials
BibTeX
@inproceedings{sun2025spectral,
title={Spectral Representation for Causal Estimation with Hidden Confounders},
author={Haotian Sun and Antoine Moulin and Tongzheng Ren and Arthur Gretton and Bo Dai},
booktitle={International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS)},
year={2025}
}