Two Concepts of Causation: Implications for Poverty

Abstract

This article seeks to bring to the attention of a readership in development studies a distinction in the literature on causation, and to show how it matters for poverty. The distinction is between 'difference-making' and 'production' as a depiction of the causal relationship. It is argued that the 'differencemaking/production' distinction lies at the root of applied debates about how to assess the impact of development programmes, how to understand the causation of poverty and how to conceive of duties to eliminate or reduce poverty. Understanding such foundational differences is important in order to expose error in applied debates, to clarify the reasons for actual methodological choice, to explain conflicting research results and to shed light on the reasons for differing policy prescriptions. Development and Change 46(1): 148-166.

Book review: Johan P. Mackenbach. Health Inequalities. Persistence and change in European welfare states

“…This generative view on causality, ‘causation as production’, which emphasises that social action has advantages over a counterfactual approach if the objective is – as JM’s is – to explain and understand a societal complex and multidimensional phenomenon such as health inequalities. Indeed, ‘causation as production’ may be seen as a different concept of causality than ‘causation as a counterfactual’ and gives a different meaning to a claim that ‘A causes B’ [9]. It seems to me that a generative approach to causality is also more consistent with JM’s own perspectives.…”

Nobel Rebels in Disguise — Assessing the Rise and Rule of the Randomistas

“…The argument that experiments measure effects and ignore causal mechanisms has been leveled by both mainstream and heterodox economists (Heckman and Smith 1995;Reddy 2012;Shaffer 2014). On the one hand, randomistas have proposed to resolve this by changing the designs of the experiments (Davis and Mobarak 2020).…”

Randomized control trials and qualitative impacts: what do they tell us about the immediate and long-term assessments of productive safety nets for women in extreme poverty in West Bengal?

“…Quantitative approaches to impact assessment take what Shaffer (2014) describes as a 'counter-factual approach' to impact assessment. What distinguishes RCTs from nonexperimental quantitative approaches which rely on ex poste or retrospective observational data is the randomization process: the assignment of individuals or households considered eligible for the intervention in question to 'treatment' and 'control' groups on a random basis prior to the start of the implementation process, in other words, prospectively.…”

“…Qualitative studies of the kind we carried out in West Bengal represent an alternative, 'mechanism-centred' approach to evaluation and seek to answer the questions that RCTs fail to ask (Shaffer, 2014). They are interested not only in the impacts of an intervention, but also how these occurred, for whom and why.…”