mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Consistent Bayesian causal discovery for structural equation models with equal error variances

arXiv 2509.15197 ↗First posted 18 Sep 2025math.ST stat.ME stat.MLcited by 1

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Abstract (arXiv)

We consider the problem of recovering the true causal structure among a set of variables, generated by a linear acyclic structural equation model (SEM) with the error terms being independent, not necessarily Gaussian, and having equal variances. It is well-known that the true underlying directed acyclic graph (DAG) encoding the causal structure is uniquely identifiable under this assumption. Interestingly, in this setting, it further holds that the sum of minimum expected squared errors for every variable, while predicted by the best linear combination of its parent variables, is minimised if and only if the causal structure is represented by any supergraph of the true DAG. In this work, we propose a Bayesian DAG selection method, where the working model assumes Gaussian SEM with equal error variances, and employ independent g-priors on each set of SEM coefficients. Furthermore, we utilise the aforementioned key property to establish that the proposed method recovers the true graph consistently without any additional distributional assumption, and illustrate it with a simulation study.

Key facts. Cited by 1 paper in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 15 of its 46 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 18 Sep 2025.

Builds on

15 of 46 references.

References · 15

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  2. 2013High-dimensional learning of linear causal networks via inverse covariance estimationcited by 87
  3. 2024Causal Representation Learning from Multiple Distributions: A General Settingcited by 68
  4. 2016Structure Learning in Graphical Modelingcited by 66
  5. 2018On Causal Discovery with Equal Variance Assumptioncited by 59
  6. 2013Parameter Priors for Directed Acyclic Graphical Models and the Characterization of Several Probability Distributionscited by 42
  7. 2019Learning Linear Non-Gaussian Causal Models in the Presence of Latent Variablescited by 39
  8. 2015Partition MCMC for inference on acyclic digraphscited by 33
  9. 2022Causal Discovery with Heterogeneous Observational Datacited by 13
  10. 2015Learning Directed Acyclic Graphs with Penalized Neighbourhood Regressioncited by 12
  11. 2023Discovery and inference of a causal network with hidden confoundingcited by 8
  12. 2016Posterior Graph Selection and Estimation Consistency for High-dimensional Bayesian DAG Modelscited by 4
3 more
  1. 2022Functional Bayesian Networks for Discovering Causality from Multivariate Functional Datacited by 4
  2. 2018Minimax Posterior Convergence Rates and Model Selection Consistency in High-dimensional DAG Models based on Sparse Cholesky Factorscited by 2
  3. 2025Consistent DAG selection for Bayesian causal discovery under general error distributionscited by 2

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