Simple Examples of Estimating Causal Effects Using Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation

Michael Rosenblum, Johns Hopkins University
Mark J. van der Laan, University of California - Berkeley

Abstract

We present a brief overview of targeted maximum likelihood for estimating the causal effect of a single time point treatment and of a two time point treatment. We focus on simple examples demonstrating how to apply the methodology developed in (van der Laan and Rubin, 2006; Moore and van der Laan, 2007; van der Laan, 2010a,b). We include R code for the single time point case.