Time and Causality in the Social Sciences

Michel Mouchart (), Renzo Orsi, Federica Russo and Guillaume Wunsch
Additional contact information
Michel Mouchart: Université catholique de Louvain, LIDAM/ISBA, Belgium
Guillaume Wunsch: Université catholique de Louvain

No 2020022, LIDAM Discussion Papers ISBA from Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences (ISBA)

Abstract: This article deals with the role of time in causal models in the social sciences, in particular in structural causal modeling, in contrast to time-free models. The aim is to underline the importance of time-sensitive causal models. For this purpose, it also refers to the important discussion on time and causality in the philosophy of science, and examines how time is taken into account in demography and in economics as examples of social sciences. Temporal information is useful to the extent that it is placed in a correct causal structure, and thus further corroborating the causal mechanism or generative process explaining the phenomenon under consideration. Despite the fact that the causal ordering of variables is more relevant for explanatory purposes than the temporal order, the former should nevertheless take into account the time-patterns of causes and effects, as these are often episodes rather than single events. For this reason in particular, it is time to put time at the core of our causal models.

Keywords: Time; Causality; Social Sciences; Demography; Economics; Structural Modeling; Causal Mechanism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31
Date: 2020-01-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://dial.uclouvain.be/pr/boreal/fr/object/bore ... tastream/PDF_01/view (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Time and causality in the social sciences (2021)
Working Paper: Time and Causality in the Social Sciences (2020)
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:aiz:louvad:2020022

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in LIDAM Discussion Papers ISBA from Université catholique de Louvain, Institute of Statistics, Biostatistics and Actuarial Sciences (ISBA) Voie du Roman Pays 20, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve (Belgium). Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Nadja Peiffer ().