Accession Number:

ADA564088

Title:

Causal Inference by Surrogate Experiments: z-Identifiability

Descriptive Note:

Conference paper

Corporate Author:

CALIFORNIA UNIV LOS ANGELES COGNITIVE SYSTEMS LAB

Personal Author(s):

• Bareinboim, Elias
• Pearl, Judea

Report Date:

2012-06-01

Pagination or Media Count:

9.0

Abstract:

We address the problem of estimating the effect of intervening on a set of variables X from experiments on a different set, Z, that is more accessible to manipulation. This problem, which we call z-identifiability reduces to ordinary identifiability when Z phi and like the latter, can be given syntactic characterization using the do-calculus Pearl, 1995 2000. We provide a graphical necessary and sufficient condition for z- identifiability for arbitrary sets X,Z, and Y the out- comes. We further develop a complete algorithm for computing the causal effect of X on Y using information provided by experiments on Z. Finally, we use our results to prove completeness of do-calculus relative to z-identifiability, a result that does not follow from completeness relative to ordinary identifiability.

Descriptors:

• *ALGORITHMS
• GRAPHICS
• SYMPOSIA
• SYNTAX

Subject Categories:

• Numerical Mathematics

Distribution Statement:

APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE