The paper introduces causal density functions, which are local density ratios that allow for the pointwise estimation and scoring of directed causal influence by comparing interventional and observational probability laws.
Abstract
More Like ThisWe introduce causal density functions: Radon-Nikodym derivatives that compare interventional laws to observational laws and therefore act as local density ratios for causal effects. Whereas many causal-strength measures compare whole distributions after graph surgery, causal density functions provide a pointwise change-of-measure object that can be estimated, calibrated, and used to score directed influence. The basic identity \[ \mathbb{E}_{\mathrm{do}}[f(Y)] = \mathbb{E}_{\mathrm{obs}}\!\left[f(Y)ρ(X,Y)\right] \] makes causal density directly testable: if the estimated density ratio is correct, observational expectations reweighted by $ρ$ reproduce interventional expectations. We derive practical estimators for do-curves and directed edge scores, relate the construction to Radon-Nikodym/Kan semantics for conditioning and intervention, and evaluate the resulting estimators on synthetic and real perturbation benchmarks.