A Crash Course in Good and Bad Controls

Sociological Methods and Research - Tập 53 Số 3 - Trang 1071-1104 - 2024
Carlos Cinelli1, Andrew Forney2, Judea Pearl3
1Department of Statistics, University of Washington, Seattle
2Department of Computer Science, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles
3Department of Computer Science, University of California, Los Angeles

Tóm tắt

Many students of statistics and econometrics express frustration with the way a problem known as “bad control” is treated in the traditional literature. The issue arises when the addition of a variable to a regression equation produces an unintended discrepancy between the regression coefficient and the effect that the coefficient is intended to represent. Avoiding such discrepancies presents a challenge to all analysts in the data intensive sciences. This note describes graphical tools for understanding, visualizing, and resolving the problem through a series of illustrative examples. By making this “crash course” accessible to instructors and practitioners, we hope to avail these tools to a broader community of scientists concerned with the causal interpretation of regression models.

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Sociological Methods and Research

Tập 53 Số 3

1071-1104

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