mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Causal Bandits with Unknown Graph Structure

arXiv 2106.02988 ↗First posted 5 Jun 2021stat.ML cs.LGcited by 37

Not on the map. Why?

Abstract (arXiv)

In causal bandit problems, the action set consists of interventions on variables of a causal graph. Several researchers have recently studied such bandit problems and pointed out their practical applications. However, all existing works rely on a restrictive and impractical assumption that the learner is given full knowledge of the causal graph structure upfront. In this paper, we develop novel causal bandit algorithms without knowing the causal graph. Our algorithms work well for causal trees, causal forests and a general class of causal graphs. The regret guarantees of our algorithms greatly improve upon those of standard multi-armed bandit (MAB) algorithms under mild conditions. Lastly, we prove our mild conditions are necessary: without them one cannot do better than standard MAB algorithms.

Key facts. Cited by 37 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 8 of its 48 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 5 Jun 2021.

Builds on

8 of 48 references.

References · 8

  1. 2016Causal Bandits: Learning Good Interventions via Causal Inferencecited by 101
  2. 2015Learning Causal Graphs with Small Interventionscited by 63
  3. 2017Cost-Optimal Learning of Causal Graphscited by 44
  4. 2017Identifying Best Interventions through Online Importance Samplingcited by 39
  5. 2020Active Structure Learning of Causal DAGs via Directed Clique Treecited by 38
  6. 2020Budgeted and Non-budgeted Causal Banditscited by 38
  7. 2018Experimental Design for Cost-Aware Learning of Causal Graphscited by 25
  8. 2019Regret Analysis of Bandit Problems with Causal Background Knowledgecited by 2

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2021: 4; 2022: 8; 2023: 10; 2024: 8; 2025: 4; 2026: 3.

37 papers.

Sort:

By area:

  1. 2022Causal Structure Learning: a Combinatorial Perspectivecited by 46
  2. 2023A Survey on Causal Reinforcement Learningcited by 45
  3. 2022Active Learning for Optimal Intervention Design in Causal Modelscited by 31
  4. 2023Causal Reinforcement Learning: A Surveycited by 23
  5. 2023Causal Deep Learningcited by 20
  6. 2022Causal Bandits for Linear Structural Equation Modelscited by 19
  7. 2022Adaptively Exploiting d-Separators with Causal Banditscited by 18
  8. 2022Combinatorial Causal Banditscited by 16
  9. 2021A Causal Bandit Approach to Learning Good Atomic Interventions in Presence of Unobserved Confounderscited by 15
  10. 2021Achieving Counterfactual Fairness for Causal Banditcited by 15
  11. 2022Causal Entropy Optimizationcited by 13
  12. 2021Bandit Algorithms for Precision Medicinecited by 12
25 more
  1. 2023Causal Bandits without Graph Learningcited by 10
  2. 2023Additive Causal Bandits with Unknown Graphcited by 10
  3. 2022Combinatorial Pure Exploration of Causal Banditscited by 9
  4. 2023Combinatorial Causal Bandits without Graph Skeletoncited by 7
  5. 2024Causal Bandits with General Causal Models and Interventionscited by 7
  6. 2023Learning Good Interventions in Causal Graphs via Coveringcited by 5
  7. 2023Exploiting Causal Graph Priors with Posterior Sampling for Reinforcement Learningcited by 5
  8. 2024Linear Causal Bandits: Unknown Graph and Soft Interventionscited by 5
  9. 2024Partial Structure Discovery is Sufficient for No-regret Learning in Causal Banditscited by 5
  10. 2023Robust Causal Bandits for Linear Modelscited by 4
  11. 2025Transfer Learning in Latent Contextual Bandits with Covariate Shift Through Causal Transportabilitycited by 4
  12. 2022Uplifting Banditscited by 2
  13. 2024Improved Bound for Robust Causal Bandits with Linear Modelscited by 2
  14. 2024Causal Bandits: The Pareto Optimal Frontier of Adaptivity, a Reduction to Linear Bandits, and Limitations around Unknown Marginalscited by 2
  15. 2024Asymmetric Graph Error Control with Low Complexity in Causal Banditscited by 2
  16. 2025Graph Learning Is Suboptimal in Causal Banditscited by 2
  17. 2021Intervention Efficient Algorithm for Two-Stage Causal MDPscited by 1
  18. 2024Causal Contextual Bandits with Adaptive Contextcited by 1
  19. 2024Graph Agnostic Causal Bayesian Optimisationcited by 1
  20. 2025Causal Bandit Over Unknown Graphs: Upper Confidence Bounds With Backdoor Adjustmentcited by 1
  21. 2023Optimal Observation-Intervention Trade-Off in Optimisation Problems with Causal Structurecited by 0
  22. 2025Causal Bayesian Optimization with Unknown Graphscited by 0
  23. 2026From Causal Graphs to Markovian States: Multi-Order State Exposure for Deep RLcited by 0
  24. 2026Non-Parametric Rehearsal Learning via Conditional Mean Embeddingscited by 0
  25. 2026Graph Structured Combinatorial Semi-Bandit with Nonlinear Reward Associations through Separable Signalscited by 0