Variable Selection in Causal Inference using a Simultaneous Penalization Method

Abstract: In the causal adjustment setting, variable selection techniques based on one of either the outcome or treatment allocation model can result in the omission of confounders, which leads to bias, or the inclusion of spurious variables, which leads to variance inflation, in the propensity score. We propose a variable selection method based on a penalized objective function which considers the outcome and treatment assignment models simultaneously. The proposed method facilitates confounder selection in high-dimensional settings. We show that under regularity conditions our method attains the oracle property. The selected variables are used to form a doubly robust regression estimator of the treatment effect. We show that under some conditions our method attains the oracle property. Simulation results are presented and economic growth data are analyzed. Specifically, we study the effect of life expectancy as a measure of population health on the average growth rate of gross domestic product per capita.