dsld (version 0.2.2)

dsldCHunting and dsldOHunting: Confounder and Proxy Hunting

Description

Confounder hunting: searches for variables C that predict both Y and S. Proxy hunting: searches for variables O that predict S.

Usage

dsldCHunting(data,yName,sName,intersectDepth=10)
dsldOHunting(data,yName,sName)

Value

The function dsldCHunting returns an R list, one component for each confounder set found.

The function dsldOHunting returns an R matrix of correlations, one row for each level of S.

Arguments

data

Data frame.

yName

Name of the response variable column.

sName

Name of the sensitive attribute column.

intersectDepth

Maximum size of intersection of the Y predictor set and the S predictor set

Author

N. Matloff

Details

dsldCHunting: The random forests function qeML:qeRF will be run on the indicated data to indicate feature importance in prediction of Y (without S) and S (without Y). Call these "important predictors" of Y and S.

Then for each i from 1 to intersectDepth, the intersection of the top i important predictors of Y and the the top i important predictors of S will be reported, thus suggesting possible confounders. Larger values of i will report more potential confounders, though including progressively weaker ones.

The analyst then may then consider omitting the variables C from models of the effect of S on Y.

Note: Run times may be long.

dsldOHunting: Factors, if any, will be converted to dummy variables, and then the Kendall Tau correlations will be calculated betwene S and potential proxy variables O, i.e. every column other than Y and S. (The Y column itself doesn't enter into computation.)

In fairness analyses, in which one desires to either eliminate or reduce the impact of S, one must consider the indirect effect of S via O. One may wish to eliminate or reduce the role of O.

Examples

# \donttest{
data(lsa) 
dsldCHunting(lsa,'bar','race1')
# e.g. suggests confounders 'decile3', 'lsat'
    
data(mortgageSE)
dsldOHunting(mortgageSE,'deny','black')
# e.g. suggests using loan value and condo purchase as proxies
# }