When can statistical theories be causally closed?

Balázs Gyenis and Miklós Rédei

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The notion of common cause closedness of a classical, Kolmogorovian probability space with respect to a causal independence relation between the random events is defined, and propositions are presented that characterize common cause closedness for specific probability spaces. It is proved in particular that no probability space with a finite number of random events can contain common causes of all the correlations it predicts; however, it is demonstrated that probability spaces even with a finite number of random events can be common cause closed with respect to a causal independence relation that is stronger than logical independence. Furthermore it is shown that infinite, atomless probability spaces are always common cause closed in the strongest possible sense. Open problems concerning common cause closedness are formulated and the results are interpreted from the perspective of Reichenbach's Common Cause Principle (RCCP).

Keywords: probabilistic causation; Reichenbach's common cause principle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Foundations of Physics, 2004, 34(9), pp. 1285-1303. ISSN: 0015-9018

Downloads: (external link)
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/49733/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:49733

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library LSE Library Portugal Street London, WC2A 2HD, U.K.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by LSERO Manager ().