Average partial effect estimation using double machine learning

Abstract: Single-parameter summaries of variable effects are desirable for ease of interpretation, but linear models, which would deliver these, may fit poorly to the data. A modern approach is to estimate the average partial effect -- the average slope of the regression function with respect to the predictor of interest -- using a doubly robust semiparametric procedure. Most existing work has focused on specific forms of nuisance function estimators. We extend the scope to arbitrary plug-in nuisance function estimation, allowing for the use of modern machine learning methods which in particular may deliver non-differentiable regression function estimates. Our procedure involves resmoothing a user-chosen first-stage regression estimator to produce a differentiable version, and modelling the conditional distribution of the predictors through a location-scale model. We show that our proposals lead to a semiparametric efficient estimator under relatively weak assumptions. Our theory makes use of a new result on the sub-Gaussianity of Lipschitz score functions that may be of independent interest. We demonstrate the attractive numerical performance of our approach in a variety of settings including ones with misspecification.