Frontiers in the Analysis of Causal Mechanisms

Sponsored by Harvard's Institute for Quantitative Social Science

A one day conference 3/24/12 convened by Dustin Tingley, Tyler VanderWeele, and Teppei Yamamoto and supported by the Eric E. Mindich fund.

Researchers in a variety of disciplines have started to clarify how this should be done, both in terms of how to analyze data from experiments or observation studies and how to design experiments themselves. Much of this progress has been made by expressing causal mechanisms in the formal framework of causal inference, but there remains considerable heterogeneity on the topic and deep disagreements. The purpose of this conference is to bring together cutting edge theoretical and applied research, in both the social and life sciences, to better our understanding of how to study causal mechanisms. Presenting papers are scholars from economics, epidemiology, political science, psychology, sociology and statistics.

A preliminary program is available. Live streamed from here http://video.isites.harvard.edu/liveVideo/liveView.do?name=Causal_Mech_03242012

On the Friday before the conference (3/23/12) there will be a two hour "crash course" on the topic for interested undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty. 

Registration for the conference is required and space is limited. Please fill out the following registration form by 3/16/12. 

Registration Form