I - Introduction

Summary

Do charter schools increase the test scores of elementary school students? If so, how large are the gains in comparison to those that could be realized by implementing alternative educational reforms? Does obtaining a college degree increase an individual's labor market earnings? If so, is this particular effect large relative to the earnings gains that could be achieved only through on-the-job training? Did the use of a butterfly ballot in some Florida counties in the 2000 presidential election cost Al Gore votes? If so, was the number of miscast votes sufficiently large to have altered the election outcome?

At their core, these types of questions are simple cause-and-effect questions of the form, Does X cause Y? If X causes Y, how large is the effect of X on Y? Is the size of this effect large relative to the effects of other causes of Y?

Simple cause-and-effect questions are the motivation for much research in the social, demographic, and health sciences, even though definitive answers to cause-and-effect questions may not always be possible to formulate given the constraints that researchers face in collecting data and evaluating alternative explanations. Even so, there is reason for optimism about our current and future abilities to effectively address cause-and-effect questions. Over the past four decades, a counterfactual model of causality has been developed and refined, and as a result a unified framework for the prosecution of causal questions is now available.