Guy Harling (@harlingg.bsky.social)

A couple of new serious networks & stats papers with a shared last author (Laura Forstiere @yalesph.bsky.social): 1. Falco Bargagli-Stoffi ++ highlight the need to account for clustering when evaluating the impact of information/diffusion interventions, and how to do this in a principled manner

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Heterogeneous treatment and spillover effects under clustered network interference The bulk of causal inference studies rule out the presence of interference between units. However, in many real-world scenarios, units are interconnected by social, physical, or virtual ties, and the effect of the treatment can spill from one unit to other connected individuals in the network. In this paper, we develop a machine learning method that uses tree-based algorithms and a Horvitz–Thompson estimator to assess the heterogeneity of treatment and spillover effects with respect to individual, neighborhood, and network characteristics in the context of clustered networks and interference within clusters. The proposed network causal tree (NCT) algorithm has several advantages. First, it allows the investigation of the heterogeneity of the treatment effect, avoiding potential bias due to the presence of interference. Second, understanding the heterogeneity of both treatment and spillover effects can guide policymakers in scaling up interventions, designing targeting strategies, and increasing cost-effectiveness. We investigate the performance of our NCT method using a Monte Carlo simulation study and illustrate its application to assess the heterogeneous effects of information sessions on the uptake of a new weather insurance policy in rural China. https://projecteuclid.org/journals/annals-of-applied-statistics/volume-19/issue-1/Heterogeneous-treatment-and-spillover-effects-under-clustered-network-interference/10.1214/24-AOAS1913.short