Causal inference
Causal inference
R. Shanmugam
TLDR
Throughout POL572 and 573, this work describes the potential outcomes framework of causal inference, and formalizes intuition of inferring causality that arises from the fact that the authors do not observe counterfactual outcomes, which are required to estimate causal outcomes.
Abstract
Throughout POL572 and 573, we will learn how to use various statistical methods in order to make causal inference , which is a main goal of social science research. We all know the mantra “correlation is not causation.” The difficulty of inferring causality arises from the fact that we do not observe counterfactual outcomes, which are required to estimate causal effects. To formalize this intuition, we begin by describing the potential outcomes framework of causal inference.