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Decision-Theoretic Foundations for Causal Reasoning



Decision-Theoretic Foundations for Causal Reasoning
Heckerman, David ; Shachter, Ross
March 1994 (revised December 1995)

Abstract: We present a definition of cause and effect in terms of
decision-theoretic primitives and thereby provide a principled foundation
for causal reasoning. Our definition departs from the traditional view of
causation in that causal assertions may vary with the set of decisions
available. We argue that this approach provides added clarity to the notion
of acyclic graphs. We describe a special class of influence diagrams, those
in canonical form, and show its relationship to Pearl's representation of
cause and effect. Finally, we show how canonical form facilitates
counterfactual reasoning.

ftp://ftp.research.microsoft.com/pub/tr/tr-94-11.ps