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Record W4417426866 · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2507.14391

Policy relevance of causal quantities in networks

2025· preprint· en· W4417426866 on OpenAlexfundno aff
Sahil Loomba, Dean Eckles

Bibliographic record

VenuearXiv (Cornell University) · 2025
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldMathematics
TopicAdvanced Causal Inference Techniques
Canadian institutionsnot available
FundersBanff International Research Station for Mathematical Innovation and Discovery
KeywordsRelevance (law)Outcome (game theory)Representation (politics)Interpretation (philosophy)Contrast (vision)Causal inference

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

In settings where units' outcomes are affected by others' treatments, there has been a proliferation of ways to quantify effects of treatments on outcomes, including via indirect exposure to other units' treatments. Here we consider two properties we might want estimands to have: being interpretable as summaries of unit-level effects, and being relevant to choice of a policy governing treatment assignment. We characterize many estimands as involving one of two orders of averaging over units in a population and over treatment assignments under a policy. The more common representation often results in quantities that are insufficient for optimal policy choice. This occurs because these quantities summarize outcomes under homogeneous exposure to treatment, but even homogeneous policies often lead to heterogeneous exposures. The other representation often yields quantities that lack an interpretation as summaries of unit-level effects. We argue that, among various estimands, the expected average outcome, which averages over units and treatment assignments in either order, deserves further attention from researchers. This estimand, or contrasts among these estimands under different policies, is both a summary of unit-level effects and is sufficient for optimal policy choice with utilitarian welfare.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.028
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.187
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Theoretical or conceptual · Consensus signal: Theoretical or conceptual
GenreCandidate signal: Methods · Consensus signal: Methods
Teacher disagreement score0.028
Threshold uncertainty score0.149

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0280.187
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.001
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0030.002
Bibliometrics0.0030.003
Science and technology studies0.0010.006
Scholarly communication0.0050.012
Open science0.0020.003
Research integrity0.0030.005
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0070.000

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.200
GPT teacher head0.310
Teacher spread0.109 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designTheoretical or conceptual
Domainnot available
GenreMethods

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations0
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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