Causal additive models with smooth backfitting

Morville Asger B. () and Park Byeong U. ()
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Morville Asger B.: Department of Statistics, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea
Park Byeong U.: Department of Statistics, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea

Journal of Causal Inference, 2025, vol. 13, issue 1, 37

Abstract: A fully nonparametric approach to learning causal structures from observational data is proposed. The method is described in the setting of additive structural equation models with a link to causal inference. The estimation procedure of the additive structural equation functions is based on a novel application of the smooth backfitting (SBF) approach. The flexibility of the nonparametric procedure results in strong theoretical properties in the estimation of the variable ordering. It is shown that under mild conditions, the ordering estimate is consistent. Through simulations, it is demonstrated that our method is superior to the state-of-the-art approaches to causal learning. In particular, the SBF approach shows robustness when the noise is heteroscedastic.

Keywords: smooth backfitting; causal discovery; additive models; nonparametric inference; structural equation models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:causin:v:13:y:2025:i:1:p:37:n:1001

DOI: 10.1515/jci-2024-0035

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