























Abstract:Unlike traditional causal inference, which prospectively evaluates the effects of causes, apportioning causal responsibility requires a retrospective assessment to deduce the causes of an outcome that has already occurred. This paper proposes a quantitative framework for apportioning causal responsibility between two binary risk factors that jointly contribute to a realized adverse outcome. Ideally, knowing the individual's latent causal type, defined by the potential outcomes under all possible exposure combinations, would allow precise apportionment; however, these potential outcomes cannot be simultaneously observed. We therefore define the average causal responsibility of each risk factor as its expected responsibility over the distribution of latent causal types. Under the assumptions of no confounding and monotonicity, we establish nonparametric identification of this metric when the type-specific responsibilities satisfy a structural balance condition, and derive sharp bounds otherwise. We illustrate the proposed framework using the classic example of lung cancer attributable to smoking and asbestos exposures.
From: Shanshan Luo [view email]
[v1]
Tue, 16 Jun 2026 20:05:48 UTC (48 KB)
此内容由惯性聚合(RSS阅读器)自动聚合整理,仅供阅读参考。 原文来自 — 版权归原作者所有。