Estimation of mean response via the effective balancing score

Abstract

We introduce the effective balancing score for estimation of the mean response under a missing-at-random mechanism. Unlike conventional balancing scores, the proposed score is constructed via dimension reduction free of model specification. Three types of such scores are introduced, distinguished by whether they carry the covariate information about the miss-ingness, the response, or both. The effective balancing score leads to consistent estimation with little or no loss in efficiency. Compared to existing estimators, it reduces the burden of model specification and is more robust. It is a near-automatic procedure which is most appealing when high-dimensional covariates are involved. We investigate its asymptotic and numerical properties, and illustrate its application with an HIV disease study.© 2014 Biometrika Trust.