Related papers: Actual causation and the art of modeling
We propose a new definition of actual causes, using structural equations to model counterfactuals.We show that the definitions yield a plausible and elegant account ofcausation that handles well examples which have caused problems forother…
We show that it is possible to understand and identify a decision maker's subjective causal judgements by observing her preferences over interventions. Following Pearl [2000], we represent causality using causal models (also called…
We propose a new definition of actual cause, using structural equations to model counterfactuals. We show that the definition yields a plausible and elegant account of causation that handles well examples which have caused problems for…
Practitioners making decisions based on causal effects typically ignore structural uncertainty. We analyze when this uncertainty is consequential enough to warrant methodological solutions (Bayesian model averaging over competing causal…
A predictive model makes outcome predictions based on some given features, i.e., it estimates the conditional probability of the outcome given a feature vector. In general, a predictive model cannot estimate the causal effect of a feature…
We present an overview of the decision-theoretic framework of statistical causality, which is well-suited for formulating and solving problems of determining the effects of applied causes. The approach is described in detail, and is related…
Despite the major advances taken in causal modeling, causality is still an unfamiliar topic for many statisticians. In this paper, it is demonstrated from the beginning to the end how causal effects can be estimated from observational data…
Perhaps the most prominent current definition of (actual) causality is due to Halpern and Pearl. It is defined using causal models (also known as structural equations models). We abstract the definition, extracting its key features, so that…
Recent work in psychology and experimental philosophy has shown that judgments of actual causation are often influenced by consideration of defaults, typicality, and normality. A number of philosophers and computer scientists have also…
The concept of causality has a controversial history. The question of whether it is possible to represent and address causal problems with probability theory, or if fundamentally new mathematics such as the do-calculus is required has been…
Graphical models can represent a multivariate distribution in a convenient and accessible form as a graph. Causal models can be viewed as a special class of graphical models that not only represent the distribution of the observed system…
We examine how causal beliefs affect an agent's choices and how feedback on those choices leads to updated causal beliefs. Building on the structural-equations framework for modeling causality, we first examine the general problem of…
Much of our experiments are designed to uncover the cause(s) and effect(s) behind a data generating mechanism (i.e., phenomenon) we happen to be interested in. Uncovering such relationships allows us to identify the true working of a…
The causal effect of an intervention (treatment/exposure) on an outcome can be estimated by: i) specifying knowledge about the data-generating process; ii) assessing under what assumptions a target quantity, such as for example a causal…
Recent years have seen many advances in methods for causal structure learning from data. The empirical assessment of such methods, however, is much less developed. Motivated by this gap, we pose the following question: how can one assess,…
We describe and contrast two distinct problem areas for statistical causality: studying the likely effects of an intervention ("effects of causes"), and studying whether there is a causal link between the observed exposure and outcome in an…
Mathematical models of the real world are simplified representations of complex systems. A caveat to using mathematical models is that predicted causal effects and conditional independences may not be robust under model extensions, limiting…
Causality is receiving increasing attention in the Recommendation Systems (RSs) community, which has realised that RSs could greatly benefit from causality to transform accurate predictions into effective and explainable decisions. Indeed,…
In this paper, the relationship between probabilistic graphical models, in particular Bayesian networks, and causal diagrams, also called structural causal models, is studied. Structural causal models are deterministic models, based on…
We describe the interface between measure theoretic probability and causal inference by constructing causal models on probability spaces within the potential outcomes framework. We find that measure theory provides a precise and instructive…