Causal Inference in Social-Environmental Systems

In a world where society and nature are deeply intertwined, identifying causal relationships between humans and their environment is key to solving sustainability challenges. This course first introduces the fundamentals of "causal thinking," including causal diagrams. Drawing on case studies of social-environmental systems, students then learn the intuition, critical assumptions, and relative merits of alternative statistical methods for causal inference. Emphasis is on a conceptual understanding of the different tools. The course culminates in a project proposal that discusses a potential empirical analysis of a chosen sustainability issue.