PSC 506: Advanced Topics in Methods

Handouts

• Syllabus (Updated 1/26/12)

Online Readings

• Mackie, J. L. 1965. "Causes and Conditions."
• Lewis, D. 1973. "Causation."
• Kim, J. 1973. "Causes and Counterfactuals."
• Salmon, W. 1973. "Probabilistic Causality."
• Humphreys, P. 1986. "Causation in the Social Sciences: An Overview."
• Woodward, J. 1994. "Review: Paul Humphreys: The Chances of Explanation."
• Goldthorpe, J. 2001. "Causation, Statistics, and Sociology."
• Brady (2002), "Causation and Explanation in Social Science."
• Levy (2011), "The language of directed acyclic graphical models."
• Weinberg (1993), "Toward a Clearer Definition of Confounding."
• Greenland, Pearl, and Robins (1999), "Causal Diagrams for Epidemiological Research."
• Pearl (1995), "Causal Diagrams for Empirical Research."
• Pearl (2003), "Statistics and Causal Inference: A Review."
• Holland (1986), "Statistics and Causal."
• Rubin (2005), "Causal Inference Using Potential Outcomes: Design Modeling, Decisions."
• Winship and Morgan (1999), "The Estimation of Causal Effects from Observational Data."
• Rosenbaum and Rubin (1983), "The Central Role of the Propensity Score in Observational Studies for Causal Effects."
• Rosenbaum and Rubin (1985), "Constructing a Control Group Using Multivariate Matched Sampling Methods That Incorporate the Propensity Score."
• Morgan and Harding (2006), "Matching Estimators of Causal Effects: Prospects and Pitfalls in Theory and Practice."
• Sekhon (2009), "Opiates for the Matches: Matching Methods for Causal Inference."
• Simmons and Hopkins (2005), "The Constraining Power of International Treaties: Theory and Methods."
• Gordon and Huber (2007), "The Effect of Electoral Competitiveness on Incumbent Behavior."
• Gilligan and Sergenti (2008), "Do UN Interventions Cause Peace? Using Matching to Improve Causal Inference."
• Ho et al. (2007), "Matching as Nonparametric Preprocessing for Reducing Model Dependence in Parametric Causal Inference."
• Imbens (2003), "Sensitivity to Exogeneity Assumptions in Program Evaluation."
• Rosenbaum (1991), "Sensitivity Analysis for Matched Case-Control Studies."
• Rosenbaum (2005), "Sensitivity Analysis in Observational Studies."
• Hosman et al. (2010), "The Sensitivity of Linear Regression Coefficients' Confidence Limits to the Omission of a Confounder."

R Resources

• The R Project
• The Comprehensive R Archive Network
• Using R for Data Analysis and Graphics: An Introduction by J.H. Maindonald
• R for Beginners by Emmanuel Paradis
• Kickstarting R by Jim Lemon
• R for Categorical Data Analysis by Brett D. Presnell
• simpleR: Using R for Introductory Statistics by John Verzani
• A Brief Guide to R for Beginners in Econometrics by Mahmood Arai
• Contributed Documentation Many of the documents listed above, as well as others, can be found here.