Correlation Implies Causation

Note I wrote this around 2020, when working at Facebook, trying to reconcile practical decision-making with how economists talk about identification. In a sense thes points are all well known. The idea is treated formally in Imbens (2003), Manski’s identification bounds; Oster (2019). I think Mostly Harmless Econometrics discusses the point informally. Still I found this a useful way of explaining…