pyfector 0.2.0

Fast counterfactual estimators for panel data — Python reimplementation of R fect

pyfector

Alpha (v0.2.x). Results have been checked against R fect on synthetic data, but edge cases may remain. APIs may change. Please verify critical results independently. Issues and pull requests are welcome at GitHub.

Counterfactual estimators for panel data in Python. Port of the R fect package (Liu, Wang & Xu, 2024, AJPS), built on numpy, scipy, polars, and joblib, with optional CuPy GPU support.

Installation

pip install pyfector

From source:

git clone https://github.com/AlanHuang99/pyfector.git
cd pyfector
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Optional extras: pip install pyfector[gpu] (CuPy), pip install pyfector[pandas].

What's New in 0.2.0

• Added sigma2_fect, the additive fixed-effect baseline residual variance used for Liu et al. (2024)'s TOST bound.
• Changed the default tost_threshold=0.36 to mean 0.36 * sqrt(sigma2_fect), matching the published specification.
• Added fit-time diagnostics via diagnostics="full" or an explicit list, with slim-safe cached results.
• Replaced the old flat diagnostics output with a future-proof Diagnostics registry while keeping built-in convenience properties such as diag.tost.
• Fixed diagnostic F-tests with partially missing bootstrap draws and tightened diagnostics option validation before expensive fits start.

Quick Start

import polars as pl
import pyfector

data = pl.read_parquet("panel_data.parquet")

result = pyfector.fect(
    data=data,
    Y="outcome",
    D="treatment",
    index=("unit_id", "year"),
    X=["gdp", "population"],
    method="ife",
    r=(0, 5),
    se=True,
    nboots=500,
    seed=42,
)

result.summary()
result.plot(kind="gap")
result.diagnose()

Estimators

method="fe" -- Two-way fixed effects

Unit and time fixed effects on the control sample, counterfactuals imputed for the treated sample. Assumes parallel trends.

method="ife" -- Interactive fixed effects (Bai 2009, Xu 2017)

Adds latent factors with unit loadings on top of fixed effects. Number of factors r can be fixed or chosen by cross-validation over r=(r_min, r_max).

method="mc" -- Matrix completion (Athey et al. 2021)

Nuclear-norm-penalized matrix completion of the counterfactual matrix. Penalty lam can be fixed or selected by cross-validation.

method="cfe" -- Complex fixed effects

Experimental complex fixed effects. Public Z/Q interaction arguments are not implemented yet and raise NotImplementedError instead of being silently ignored.

Cross-validation masks a fraction cv_prop of control cells and scores candidates by prediction error (mspe, gmspe, or mad). By default, cv_rule="min" follows the papers and selects the strict minimum-score candidate. Use cv_rule="onepct" to select the simpler candidate within 1% of the best score (lower r for IFE, higher lam for MC).

Design choices

pyfector is paper-faithful first. When the published counterfactual-estimator papers and historical R package behavior differ, the default follows the paper and compatibility behavior is exposed through explicit options.

Cross-validation rule

The papers describe choosing r or lam by a prespecified validation metric such as MSPE. Therefore cv_rule="min" is the default. The onepct rule is useful as a sensitivity check because it avoids adding flexibility for tiny validation gains, but it is a heuristic rather than the paper's core selection criterion.

Missing outcomes and the estimand

pyfector distinguishes two kinds of missingness:

State	How pyfector treats it
Treated cells, where D == 1	Treated status makes untreated potential outcomes unobserved; pyfector imputes Y_ct = Y(0) for these cells.
Raw missing outcome, where input Y is null	The outcome is not observed. The cell is excluded from fitting and from ATT aggregation.

Internally, missing Y cells are stored as 0.0 only as a dense-array placeholder. The observation mask I carries missingness, and estimators use I/II to decide which cells are observed. A missing treated outcome may receive a model counterfactual, but it does not enter att_avg, att_on, or bootstrap/jackknife ATT calculations because the treated potential outcome Y(1) was not observed.

For unit filtering, the default estimand is the ATT over the matched panel's observed treated outcome cells, using all available observed untreated outcomes to fit the counterfactual model. Controls are not required to satisfy min_T0 by default, so sparse controls can still help estimate the response surface. Units with no observed outcome at all are always dropped. Set min_T0_strict=True to require controls to satisfy min_T0 as well; this is the conservative R-package-style sparse-panel behavior and changes the estimand toward always-active units.

---

Parameters

fect()

fect(
    data, Y, D, index,
    *, X=None, W=None, group=None, method="ife", force="two-way",
    r=0, lam=None, nlambda=10, lambda_candidates=None,
    CV=True, k=10, cv_prop=0.1,
    cv_nobs=3, cv_treat=True, cv_donut=0, criterion="mspe",
    cv_rule="min",
    se=False, vartype="bootstrap", nboots=200, alpha=0.05,
    tol=1e-7, max_iter=5000, min_T0=1, min_T0_strict=False,
    max_missing=1.0, normalize=False,
    Z=None, Q=None,
    device="cpu", n_jobs=-1, seed=None,
) -> FectResult

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
data	pl.DataFrame or pd.DataFrame	required	Panel data in long format
Y	str	required	Outcome column
D	str	required	Treatment indicator (0/1)
index	(str, str)	required	(unit_id, time) column names
X	list[str]	None	Time-varying covariate columns
W	str	None	Observation weight column
group	str	None	Not implemented; raises NotImplementedError when supplied
method	str	"ife"	"fe", "ife", "mc", "cfe", "both"
force	str	"two-way"	"none", "unit", "time", "two-way"
r	int or (int, int)	0	Number of factors; tuple triggers CV over range
lam	float	None	MC nuclear-norm penalty; None selects by CV
nlambda	int	10	Grid size for MC CV
lambda_candidates	array-like	None	Explicit non-negative lambda candidates for MC CV; overrides nlambda
CV	bool	True	Cross-validate over r or lam
k	int	10	CV folds
cv_prop	float	0.1	Fraction of control cells masked per CV fold
cv_nobs	int	3	Consecutive within-unit observations to mask together during CV
cv_treat	bool	True	If True, CV masks eligible pre-treatment cells from ever-treated units; if False, it masks all observed control cells
cv_donut	int	0	Exclude this many periods around treatment onset from CV evaluation
criterion	str	"mspe"	CV loss: "mspe", "gmspe", "mad"
cv_rule	str	"min"	"min" selects the strict minimum validation score; "onepct" selects the simpler candidate within 1% of the best score
se	bool	False	Compute standard errors
vartype	str	"bootstrap"	"bootstrap" or "jackknife"
nboots	int	200	Bootstrap replications
alpha	float	0.05	Significance level for intervals and tests
tol	float	1e-7	EM convergence tolerance
max_iter	int	5000	Max EM iterations
min_T0	int	1	Minimum untreated/pre-treatment observed periods; default applies to treated/reversal units
min_T0_strict	bool	False	If True, apply min_T0 to controls too, matching conservative R fect sparse-panel filtering
max_missing	float	1.0	Maximum missing-outcome fraction per unit; units with zero observed outcomes are always dropped
normalize	bool	False	Normalize outcome by standard deviation
Z, Q	list[str]	None	Not implemented; raises NotImplementedError when supplied
device	str	"cpu"	"cpu" or "gpu" (requires pyfector[gpu])
n_jobs	int	-1	Parallel workers for CV / bootstrap; -1 uses all CPUs
seed	int	None	Random seed

Data format

Long-format panel with one row per unit per period.

Column	Type	Description
outcome	float	Outcome variable
unit id	int/str	Unit identifier
time	int	Time period
treatment	int	0/1 treatment indicator

---

Output

fect() returns a FectResult with these fields:

Field	Type	Description
att_avg	float	Overall ATT over observed treated outcome cells
att_avg_unit	float	Unit-averaged ATT over units with observed treated outcome cells
att_on	ndarray	Dynamic ATT by relative time, using observed cells only
time_on	ndarray	Relative time indices
count_on	ndarray	Observation count per relative time
beta	ndarray	Covariate coefficients
Y_ct	ndarray	(T, N) counterfactual outcome matrix
eff	ndarray	(T, N) raw effect matrix Y - Y_ct; use panel.I to identify observed cells
factors	ndarray	(T, r) estimated factors (IFE)
loadings	ndarray	(N, r) estimated loadings (IFE)
sigma2	float	Residual variance
r_cv	int	CV-selected r
lambda_cv	float	CV-selected lam
inference	InferenceResult	Bootstrap or jackknife results (if se=True)

Methods

Method	Description
summary()	Formatted text summary
plot(kind, **kwargs)	Matplotlib figure. Kinds: gap, status, factors, counterfactual
diagnose(...)	Diagnostic tests (see below)

Inference

When se=True, result.inference carries bootstrap or jackknife SEs and CIs for the overall ATT and per-period effects, plus the full bootstrap distribution (att_avg_boot, att_on_boot).

Diagnostics

# Default: omit tost_threshold to use Liu et al. (2024)'s 0.36 * sqrt(sigma2_fect)
diag = result.diagnose(
    placebo_period=(-5, -1),
    loo=True,
)
diag.summary()

# Or run all diagnostics at fit time and store on the result object
# (slim-safe: result.diagnostics survives a downstream slim of result.panel)
result = pyfector.fect(
    df, Y="y", D="d", index=("unit", "time"),
    method="mc", se=True, nboots=200,
    diagnostics="full",
    diagnostics_options={"placebo_period": (-3, 0)},
)
result.diagnostics.tost.threshold
result.diagnostics.tests  # registry for future diagnostic outputs

The tost_threshold argument has three modes:

• Omitted or 0.36: uses Liu's auto-scaled bound 0.36 * sqrt(result.sigma2_fect)
• Any other positive float: absolute outcome-scale bound (e.g. tost_threshold=0.1)
• None: invalid; raises ValueError

sigma2_fect is computed from the additive fixed-effect baseline using the force structure requested for the fit. With the default force="two-way", its denominator uses residual degrees of freedom for the identified unit/time FE design on the observed untreated cells.

Test	Outputs
Pre-trend F-test	diag.pretrend_f.f_stat, .p_value, .df1, .df2
Equivalence F-test	diag.equiv_f.p_value, .f_threshold
TOST	diag.tost.pvals, .threshold, .threshold_source, .max_pval, .all_pass
Placebo	diag.placebo.estimate, .se, .p_value, .equiv_p_value
Carryover	diag.carryover.estimate
Leave-one-out	diag.loo.atts, .max_change
Resolved options	diag.options (records what was actually used)

---

Validation against R fect

Synthetic DGP, N=200, T=50. Point estimates:

Scenario	pyfector	R fect	Difference
FE	4.995583	4.995640	-0.000057
FE + X	4.975683	4.975809	-0.000126
IFE r=2	3.010223	3.013046	-0.002822
IFE r=2 + X	2.993155	2.996099	-0.002944
MC lambda=0.01	3.176671	3.176721	-0.000050

FE and MC agree to 4-6 decimal places. IFE differences reflect SVD rotation non-uniqueness.

Bootstrap SEs (500 reps):

Scenario	pyfector	R fect	Ratio
FE	0.020011	0.021291	0.94
IFE r=2	0.017128	0.018382	0.93

Covariate coefficients agree to 6 decimal places. Comparison scripts are in benchmarks/.

---

Performance notes

Hot paths use vectorised numpy, a randomised truncated SVD for the interactive-FE update when r << min(T, N), and a Gram-matrix SVD shortcut for rectangular matrix-completion panels. Cross-validation and bootstrap replications parallelise over n_jobs via joblib. GPU execution is available through device="gpu" when CuPy is installed. See benchmarks/ for reproducible timing scripts.

---

Testing

uv run pytest tests/                    # full suite
uv run pytest tests/test_vs_r.py -v -s  # R validation (requires R + fect)

---

API reference

• REFERENCE.md -- parameter tables, return types
• API docs -- searchable HTML reference (pdoc)

---

References

• Liu, L., Wang, Y., & Xu, Y. (2024). "A Practical Guide to Counterfactual Estimators for Causal Inference with Time-Series Cross-Sectional Data." American Journal of Political Science, 68(1), 160-176.
• Xu, Y. (2017). "Generalized Synthetic Control Method." Political Analysis, 25(1), 57-76.
• Athey, S., Bayati, M., Doudchenko, N., Imbens, G., & Khosravi, K. (2021). "Matrix Completion Methods for Causal Panel Data Models." JASA, 116(536), 1716-1730.
• Bai, J. (2009). "Panel Data Models with Interactive Fixed Effects." Econometrica, 77(4), 1229-1279.

License

MIT