Fast Rerandomization via the BRAIN

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Lu, Jiuyao, Liu, Daogao, Lin, Zhanran, Wang, Xiaomeng
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Lu, Jiuyao
Liu, Daogao
Lin, Zhanran
Wang, Xiaomeng
author_facet Lu, Jiuyao
Liu, Daogao
Lin, Zhanran
Wang, Xiaomeng
contents Randomized experiments are a crucial tool for causal inference in many different fields. Rerandomization addresses any covariate imbalance in such experiments by resampling treatment assignments until certain balance criteria are satisfied. However, rerandomization based on naïve acceptance-rejection sampling is computationally inefficient, especially when numerous independent assignments are required to perform randomization-based statistical inference. Existing acceleration methods are suboptimal and not applicable in structured experiments, including stratified and clustered experiments. Based on metaheuristics in integer programming, we propose BRAIN -- a novel computationally-lightweight methodology that ensures covariate balance in randomized experiments while significantly accelerating the computation. Our BRAIN method provides unbiased treatment effect estimators with reduced variance compared to complete randomization, preserving the desirable statistical properties of traditional rerandomization. Simulation studies and a real data example demonstrate the benefits of our method in fast sampling while retaining the appealing statistical guarantees.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2312_17230
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fast Rerandomization via the BRAIN
Lu, Jiuyao
Liu, Daogao
Lin, Zhanran
Wang, Xiaomeng
Methodology
Optimization and Control
Computation
Randomized experiments are a crucial tool for causal inference in many different fields. Rerandomization addresses any covariate imbalance in such experiments by resampling treatment assignments until certain balance criteria are satisfied. However, rerandomization based on naïve acceptance-rejection sampling is computationally inefficient, especially when numerous independent assignments are required to perform randomization-based statistical inference. Existing acceleration methods are suboptimal and not applicable in structured experiments, including stratified and clustered experiments. Based on metaheuristics in integer programming, we propose BRAIN -- a novel computationally-lightweight methodology that ensures covariate balance in randomized experiments while significantly accelerating the computation. Our BRAIN method provides unbiased treatment effect estimators with reduced variance compared to complete randomization, preserving the desirable statistical properties of traditional rerandomization. Simulation studies and a real data example demonstrate the benefits of our method in fast sampling while retaining the appealing statistical guarantees.
title Fast Rerandomization via the BRAIN
topic Methodology
Optimization and Control
Computation
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.17230