On the Role of Counterfactuals in Inferring Causal Effects of Treatments

Jochen Kluve ()

No 354, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: Causal inference in the empirical sciences is based on counterfactuals. This paper presents the counterfactual account of causation in terms of Lewis’s possible-world semantics, and reformulates the statistical potential outcome framework and its underlying assumptions using counterfactual conditionals. I discuss varieties of causally meaningful counterfactuals for the case of a finite number of treatments, and illustrate these using a simple set-theoretical framework. The paper proceeds to examine proximity relations between possible worlds, and discusses implications for empirical practice.

Keywords: treatment effect; possible worlds; counterfactuals; Causation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B30 C19 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 57 pages
Date: 2001-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - revised version published as 'On the Role of Counterfactuals in Inferring Causal Effects' in: Foundations of Science, 2004, 9 (1), 65-101

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp354.pdf (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:iza:izadps:dp354

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().