{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,8,25]],"date-time":"2026-08-25T12:58:49Z","timestamp":1787662729293,"version":"build-2736575974"},"reference-count":56,"publisher":"The Econometric Society","issue":"1","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,1]],"date-time":"2026-01-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1767225600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/legalcode"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["QE"],"abstract":"<jats:p>We propose a new nonparametric modeling framework for causal inference when outcomes depend on how agents are linked in a social or economic network. Such network interference describes a large literature on treatment spillovers, social interactions, social learning, information diffusion, disease and financial contagion, social capital formation, and more. Our approach works by first characterizing how an agent is linked in the network using the configuration of other agents and connections nearby as measured by path distance. The impact of a policy or treatment assignment is then learned by pooling outcome data across similarly configured agents. We demonstrate the approach by deriving finite\u2010sample bounds on the mean\u2010squared error of a k\u2010nearest neighbor estimator for the average treatment response as well as proposing an asymptotically valid test for the hypothesis of policy irrelevance. We illustrate the empirical applicability of our method with simulations and an application to social capital formation.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3982\/qe2484","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,28]],"date-time":"2026-01-28T12:56:21Z","timestamp":1769604981000},"page":"173-199","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":4,"title":["The local approach to causal inference under network interference"],"prefix":"10.3982","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Eric","family":"Auerbach","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Economics, Northwestern University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hongchang","family":"Guo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Economics, Northwestern University"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Max","family":"Tabord-Meehan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Economics, University of Toronto"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"2359","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"reference":[{"issue":"1","key":"quan70002-bib-0001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"235","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1468-0262.2006.00655.x","volume":"74","author":"Abadie","year":"2006","journal-title":"Econometrica"},{"key":"quan70002-bib-0002","first-page":"1","volume-title":"Probability on Discrete Structures","author":"Aldous","year":"2004"},{"key":"quan70002-bib-0003","unstructured":"Ananth, Abhishek (2020), \u201cOptimal treatment assignment rules on networked populations.\u201d Technical Report, working paper."},{"issue":"6","key":"quan70002-bib-0004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1241","DOI":"10.1162\/rest_a_01025","volume":"104","author":"Anderson","year":"2022","journal-title":"Review of Economics and Statistics"},{"issue":"4","key":"quan70002-bib-0005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"826","DOI":"10.1080\/07350015.2019.1592755","volume":"38","author":"Arduini","year":"2020","journal-title":"Journal of Business & Economic Statistics"},{"issue":"1","key":"quan70002-bib-0006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.3982\/QE1199","volume":"11","author":"Armstrong","year":"2020","journal-title":"Quantitative Economics"},{"issue":"1","key":"quan70002-bib-0007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1177\/0049124112437535","volume":"41","author":"Aronow","year":"2012","journal-title":"Sociological Methods & Research"},{"issue":"4","key":"quan70002-bib-0008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1912","DOI":"10.1214\/16-AOAS1005","volume":"11","author":"Aronow","year":"2017","journal-title":"The Annals of Applied Statistics"},{"issue":"521","key":"quan70002-bib-0009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"230","DOI":"10.1080\/01621459.2016.1241178","volume":"113","author":"Athey","year":"2018","journal-title":"Journal of the American Statistical Association"},{"issue":"2","key":"quan70002-bib-0010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1257\/jep.31.2.3","volume":"31","author":"Athey","year":"2017","journal-title":"Journal of Economic Perspectives"},{"issue":"1","key":"quan70002-bib-0011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"21","DOI":"10.1093\/biomet\/asad054","volume":"111","author":"Auerbach","year":"2024","journal-title":"Biometrika"},{"key":"quan70002-bib-0012","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Auerbach, Eric, Hongchang Guo, and Max Tabord-Meehan (2026), \u201cSupplement to \u2018The local approach to causal inference under network interference\u2019.\u201d Quantitative Economics Supplemental Material, 17, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3982\/QE2484.","DOI":"10.3982\/QE2484"},{"issue":"2","key":"quan70002-bib-0013","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"549","DOI":"10.1162\/qjec.2010.125.2.549","volume":"125","author":"Azoulay","year":"2010","journal-title":"The Quarterly Journal of Economics"},{"issue":"5","key":"quan70002-bib-0014","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1403","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1468-0262.2006.00709.x","volume":"74","author":"Ballester","year":"2006","journal-title":"Econometrica"},{"issue":"6144","key":"quan70002-bib-0015","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1126\/science.1236498","volume":"341","author":"Banerjee","year":"2013","journal-title":"Science"},{"key":"quan70002-bib-0016","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Benjamini, Itai and Oded Schramm (2001), \u201cRecurrence of distributional limits of finite planar graphs.\u201d Electronic Journal of Probability, 6.","DOI":"10.1214\/EJP.v6-96"},{"key":"quan70002-bib-0017","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-25388-6","volume-title":"Lectures on the Nearest Neighbor Method","volume":"246","author":"Biau","year":"2015"},{"key":"quan70002-bib-0018","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Blume, Lawrence E., William A. 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