OxTalks is Changing
OxTalks will soon move to the new Halo platform and will become 'Oxford Events.' There will be a need for an OxTalks freeze. This was previously planned for Friday 14th November – a new date will be shared as soon as it is available (full details will be available on the Staff Gateway).
In the meantime, the OxTalks site will remain active and events will continue to be published.
If staff have any questions about the Oxford Events launch, please contact halo@digital.ox.ac.uk
Nonparametric Causal Decomposition of Group Differences: New Mechanisms & New Methods
Researchers often ask how an intervening variable contributes to observed group-based outcome disparities. Examples include the roles of education in generating gender wage gaps, racial health disparities, and intergenerational income mobility. We introduce a new nonparametric decomposition approach to put this enterprise on a firm causal footing. We make three contributions. First, we introduce a previously overlooked disparity-generating mechanism; second, we show how to isolate three distinct mechanisms under unstructured effect heterogeneity; third, we develop multiply robust and semi parametrically efficient double/debiased machine learning estimators with desirable properties. Empirically we show how college graduation plays multiple and nearly countervailing causal roles in intergenerational income mobility, including via our newly discovered generative mechanism. Joint work with Ang Yu.
Date:
8 October 2025, 14:00
Venue:
Nuffield College, New Road OX1 1NF
Venue Details:
Butler Room
Speaker:
Felix Elwert (University Wisconsin-Madison)
Organising department:
Big Data Institute (NDPH)
Organiser contact email address:
LCDS.office@demography.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
Leverhulme Centre for Demographic Science
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Members of the University only
Editor:
Louise Allcock
