Explanatory Modeling

  • theory hypotheses statistical test effect size & result
  • Counterfactual

Conditions

  • X: independent
  • Y: dependent
  • Y follows X temporally
  • Y changes as X changes and the relationship is significant
  • No other cause should eliminate the relation between X and Y
    • changes in X produce changes in Y
    • ceteris paribus (holding all else constant)

Selection Bias

  • Errors and Biases
  • groups needs to be random and representative
  • one normally cannot randomly assign traits, only memberships to groups
    • e.g. one cannot assign a different nationality, but we can create randomly mixed groups
  • how to circumvent:
    • randomly select from population you want to study
    • randomly assign to different groups