Optimal Treatment Regimes for Proximal Causal Learning
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Abstract (arXiv)
A common concern when a policymaker draws causal inferences from and makes decisions based on observational data is that the measured covariates are insufficiently rich to account for all sources of confounding, i.e., the standard no confoundedness assumption fails to hold. The recently proposed proximal causal inference framework shows that proxy variables that abound in real-life scenarios can be leveraged to identify causal effects and therefore facilitate decision-making. Building upon this line of work, we propose a novel optimal individualized treatment regime based on so-called outcome and treatment confounding bridges. We then show that the value function of this new optimal treatment regime is superior to that of existing ones in the literature. Theoretical guarantees, including identification, superiority, excess value bound, and consistency of the estimated regime, are established. Furthermore, we demonstrate the proposed optimal regime via numerical experiments and a real data application.
Key facts. Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 35 of its 76 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 Dec 2022.
Builds on
35 of 76 references.
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23 more
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Citing papers per year: 2023: 2; 2024: 0; 2025: 0; 2026: 3.
5 papers.
- 2023Proximal Causal Learning of Conditional Average Treatment Effectscited by 7
- 2023Policy Learning with Distributional Welfarecited by 5
- 2026Proximal Path-Specific Inferencecited by 1
- 2026Decision-Aware Proximal Bridge Learning for Optimal Treatment Selectioncited by 0
- 2026Proximal Mediation Analysis with Hidden Recanting Witnessescited by 0
- 2026Proximal Mediation Analysis with Hidden Recanting Witnesses16 Jun 2026
- 2026Decision-Aware Proximal Bridge Learning for Optimal Treatment Selection16 May 2026
- 2026Proximal Path-Specific Inference10 May 2026
- 2023Policy Learning with Distributional Welfare27 Nov 2023
- 2023Proximal Causal Learning of Conditional Average Treatment Effects26 Jan 2023