Does Obesity Shorten Life? Or is it the Soda? On Non-manipulable Causes

Pearl Judea ()
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Pearl Judea: Cognitive Systems Laboratory, Computer Science Department, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024, USA

Journal of Causal Inference, 2018, vol. 6, issue 2, 7

Abstract: Non-manipulable factors, such as gender or race have posed conceptual and practical challenges to causal analysts. On the one hand these factors do have consequences, and on the other hand, they do not fit into the experimentalist conception of causation. This paper addresses this challenge in the context of public debates over the health cost of obesity, and offers a new perspective, based on the theory of Structural Causal Models (SCM).

Keywords: Manipulability; consistency; causal effect; counterfactuals; interventions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:causin:v:6:y:2018:i:2:p:7:n:3

DOI: 10.1515/jci-2018-2001

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