The Three Layer Causal Hierarchy
Recent discussions concerning causal mediation gave me the impression that many researchers in the field are not familiar with the ramifications of the Causal Hierarchy, as articulated in Chapter 1 of Causality (2000, 2009). This note presents the Causal Hierarchy in table form (Fig. 1) and discusses the distinctions between its three layers: 1. Association, 2. Intervention, 3. Counterfactuals.
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