Dean Eckles (MIT)

Title

Policy relevance of causal quantities in networks

Abstract

In settings where units' outcomes are affected by others' treatments, there has been a proliferation of ways to quantify effects of treatments on outcomes. Here we describe how many proposed estimands can be represented as involving one of two ways of averaging over units and treatment assignments. The more common representation — average potential outcomes and comparisons between them — often results in quantities that are irrelevant, or at least insufficient, for optimal choice of policies governing treatment assignment. The other representation often yields quantities that lack an interpretation as summaries of unit-level causal effects, but that we argue may still be relevant to policy choice. Among various estimands, the expected average outcome — or its contrast between two different policies — can be represented both ways and is both an average of unit-level causal effects and sufficient for policy choice. Joint work with Sahil Loomba.