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Autores principales: Young, Justin, Dillon, Eleanor Wiske
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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Acceso en línea:https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.11845
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author Young, Justin
Dillon, Eleanor Wiske
author_facet Young, Justin
Dillon, Eleanor Wiske
contents Recent developments in causal machine learning methods have made it easier to estimate flexible relationships between confounders, treatments and outcomes, making unconfoundedness assumptions in causal analysis more palatable. How successful are these approaches in recovering ground truth baselines? In this paper we analyze a new data sample including an experimental rollout of a new feature at a large technology company and a simultaneous sample of users who endogenously opted into the feature. We find that recovering ground truth causal effects is feasible -- but only with careful modeling choices. Our results build on the observational causal literature beginning with LaLonde (1986), offering best practices for more credible treatment effect estimation in modern, high-dimensional datasets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_11845
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reevaluating Causal Estimation Methods with Data from a Product Release
Young, Justin
Dillon, Eleanor Wiske
Econometrics
Methodology
Recent developments in causal machine learning methods have made it easier to estimate flexible relationships between confounders, treatments and outcomes, making unconfoundedness assumptions in causal analysis more palatable. How successful are these approaches in recovering ground truth baselines? In this paper we analyze a new data sample including an experimental rollout of a new feature at a large technology company and a simultaneous sample of users who endogenously opted into the feature. We find that recovering ground truth causal effects is feasible -- but only with careful modeling choices. Our results build on the observational causal literature beginning with LaLonde (1986), offering best practices for more credible treatment effect estimation in modern, high-dimensional datasets.
title Reevaluating Causal Estimation Methods with Data from a Product Release
topic Econometrics
Methodology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.11845