Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: Experimental studies in which treatment assignment is random but subject compliance is imperfect may be susceptible to bias; the actual effect of the treatment may deviate appreciably from the mean difference between treated and untreated subjects. This paper establishes universal formulas that can be used to bound the actual treatment effect in any experiment for which compliance data is available and in which the assignment influences the response only through the treatment given. Using a linear programming analysis, we present formulas that provide the tightest bounds that can be inferred on the average treatment effect, given an empirical distribution of assignments, treatments, and responses. The application of these results is demonstrated on data that relates cholesterol levels to cholestyramine treatment ([Lipid Research Clinic Program 84]).
Authors: Alexander Balke, Judea Pearl
Language: English
Subfield: Statistics and Probability
Field: Mathematics
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1558819266