We describe a causal learning method, which employs measuring the strength of statistical dependences in terms of the Hilbert-Schmidt norm of kernel-based cross-covariance operators. Following the line of the common faithfulness assumption of constraint-based causal learning, our approach assumes that a variable Z is likely to be a common effect of X and Y , if conditioning on Z increases the dependence between X and Y . Based on this assumption, we collect "votes" for hypothetical causal directions and orient the edges by the majority principle. In most experiments with known causal structures, our method provided plausible results and outperformed the conventional constraint-based PC algorithm.
Abstract.A straightforward nonlinear extension of Granger's concept of causality in the kernel framework is suggested. The kernel-based approach to assessing nonlinear Granger causality in multivariate time series enables us to determine, in a model-free way, whether the causal relation between two time series is present or not and whether it is direct or mediated by other processes. The trace norm of the so-called covariance operator in feature space is used to measure the prediction error. Relying on this measure, we test the improvement of predictability between time series by subsampling-based multiple testing. The distributional properties of the resulting p-values reveal the direction of Granger causality. Experiments with simulated and real-world data show that our method provides encouraging results.
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