Spotlight
On Measuring Causal Contributions via do-interventions
Yonghan Jung · Shiva Kasiviswanathan · Jin Tian · Dominik Janzing · Patrick Bloebaum · Elias Bareinboim
Ballroom 3 & 4
Causal contributions measure the strengths of different causes to a target quantity. Understanding causal contributions is important in empirical sciences and data-driven disciplines since it allows to answer practical queries like ``what are the contributions of each cause to the effect?'' In this paper, we develop a principled method for quantifying causal contributions. First, we provide desiderata of properties axioms that causal contribution measures should satisfy and propose the do-Shapley values (inspired by do-interventions [Pearl, 2000]) as a unique method satisfying these properties. Next, we develop a criterion under which the do-Shapley values can be efficiently inferred from non-experimental data. Finally, we provide do-Shapley estimators exhibiting consistency, computational feasibility, and statistical robustness. Simulation results corroborate with the theory.