Manifold Causal Conditional Deep Networks for Heterogeneous Treatment Effect Estimation and Policy Evaluation
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: We present a comprehensive framework for estimating heterogeneous treatment effects and evaluating decision-making policies in high-dimensional settings. Our approach combines nonlinear manifold learning techniques—UMAP, t-SNE, and Isomap—with a Causal Conditional Deep Network (CCDN) to model complex nonlinear interactions among covariates, treatments, and outcomes. Within this framework, we assess five treatment assignment policies—Greedy, Thompson Sampling, Epsilon-Greedy, Random, and a novel LLM-guided Thompson policy—across simulated and real-world datasets, including Adult, Wine Quality, and Boston Housing. Empirical results reveal a fundamental trade-off: exploitative policies like Greedy minimize cumulative regret but underperform in recovering heterogeneous treatment effects, whereas exploratory policies, particularly Random and LLM-Thompson, achieve a lower Conditional Average Treatment Effect Root Mean Squared Error (CATE RMSE) by providing broader coverage of the action–covariate space. Notably, LLM-Thompson consistently delivers strong performance across noisy, real-world datasets, highlighting the advantage of uncertainty-aware exploration in capturing treatment heterogeneity. Overall, the framework demonstrates that integrating manifold-informed deep networks with principled exploration strategies enhances both policy optimization and individualized treatment effect estimation in high-dimensional, complex environments.
Source: Mathematics
DOI: 10.3390/math14040738
Author: Jong-Min Kim
Institutions: University of Minnesota Morris, Tecnológico de Monterrey
Language: English
Subfield: Statistics and Probability
Field: Mathematics
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,137
OpenAlex ID: W7130977531