In observational studies the overall aim when fitting a model for the propensity score is to reduce bias for an estimator of the causal effect. For this purpose guidelines for covariate selection for propensity score models have been proposed in the causal inference literature. To make the...

We consider estimation of a linear or nonparametric additive model in which a few coefficients or additive components are "large" and may be objects of substantive interest, whereas others are "small" but not necessarily zero. The number of small coefficients or additive components may exceed...