Inference on Variable Importance for Treatment Effect Heterogeneity: Shapley Values and Beyond

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Morzywolek, Pawel, Gilbert, Peter B., Luedtke, Alex
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Morzywolek, Pawel
Gilbert, Peter B.
Luedtke, Alex
author_facet Morzywolek, Pawel
Gilbert, Peter B.
Luedtke, Alex
contents We provide an inferential framework to assess variable importance for heterogeneous treatment effects. This assessment is especially useful in high-risk domains such as medicine, where decision makers hesitate to rely on black-box treatment recommendation algorithms. The variable importance measures we consider are local in that they may differ across individuals, while the inference is global in that it tests whether a given variable is important for any individual. Our approach builds on recent developments in semiparametric theory for function-valued parameters, and is valid even when statistical machine learning algorithms are employed to quantify treatment effect heterogeneity. We demonstrate the applicability of our method to infectious disease prevention strategies.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_18843
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Inference on Variable Importance for Treatment Effect Heterogeneity: Shapley Values and Beyond
Morzywolek, Pawel
Gilbert, Peter B.
Luedtke, Alex
Methodology
Statistics Theory
Machine Learning
We provide an inferential framework to assess variable importance for heterogeneous treatment effects. This assessment is especially useful in high-risk domains such as medicine, where decision makers hesitate to rely on black-box treatment recommendation algorithms. The variable importance measures we consider are local in that they may differ across individuals, while the inference is global in that it tests whether a given variable is important for any individual. Our approach builds on recent developments in semiparametric theory for function-valued parameters, and is valid even when statistical machine learning algorithms are employed to quantify treatment effect heterogeneity. We demonstrate the applicability of our method to infectious disease prevention strategies.
title Inference on Variable Importance for Treatment Effect Heterogeneity: Shapley Values and Beyond
topic Methodology
Statistics Theory
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.18843