eff2 (Q120902)

Estimate a total causal effect from observational data under linearity and causal sufficiency. The observational data is supposed to be generated from a linear structural equation model (SEM) with independent and additive noise. The underlying causal DAG associated the SEM is required to be known up to a maximally oriented partially directed graph (MPDAG), which is a general class of graphs consisting of both directed and undirected edges, including CPDAGs (i.e., essential graphs) and DAGs. Such graphs are usually obtained with structure learning algorithms with added background knowledge. The program is able to estimate every identified effect, including single and multiple treatment variables. Moreover, the resulting estimate has the minimal asymptotic covariance (and hence shortest confidence intervals) among all estimators that are based on the sample covariance.