Potential Outcome and Directed Acyclic Graph Approaches to Causality: Relevance for Empirical Practice in Economics
讨论了潜在结果和有向无环图两种因果关系方法，并评估它们对经济学实证工作的适用性，指出经济学研究更接近潜在结果视角。
In this essay I discuss potential outcome and graphical approaches to causality, and their relevance for empirical work in economics. I review some of the work on directed acyclic graphs, including the recent The Book of Why (Pearl and Mackenzie 2018). I also discuss the potential outcome framework developed by Rubin and coauthors (e.g., Rubin 2006), building on work by Neyman (1990 [1923]). I then discuss the relative merits of these approaches for empirical work in economics, focusing on the questions each framework answers well, and why much of the the work in economics is closer in spirit to the potential outcome perspective.