The Functional Average Treatment Effect

Abstract

This paper establishes the functional average as an important estimand for causal inference. The significance of the estimand lies in its robustness against traditional issues of confounding. We prove that this robustness holds even when the probability distribution of the outcome, conditional on treatment or some other vector of adjusting variables, differs almost arbitrarily from its counterfactual analogue. This paper also examines possible estimators of the functional average, including the sample mid-range, and proposes a new type of bootstrap for robust statistical inference: the Hoeffding bootstrap. After this, the paper explores a new class of variables, the $\mathcal{U}$ class of variables, that simplifies the estimation of functional averages. This class of variables is also used to establish mean exchangeability in some cases and to provide the results of elementary statistical procedures, such as linear regression and the analysis of variance, with causal interpretations. Simulation evidence is provided. The methods of this paper are also applied to a National Health and Nutrition Survey data set to investigate the causal effect of exercise on the blood pressure of adult smokers.