A large amount of policy-oriented economic research is made using sophisticated empirical methods of causal inference. The results obtained with these methods are said to be highly objective and reliable guides to policy prescriptions. However, the notion of causality and the causal assumptions underlying these methods affect the policy relevance of the scientific results, thereby threatening their reliability for achieving policy goals. In this research project, I study the process whereby causal knowledge is established and exchanged at the intersection between scientific economics and policy-making. Armed with an innovative interdisciplinary perspective, I analyze the ways empirical economists use causal concepts and methods to inform actual cases of policy deliberation. I offer a diagnostic and potential ways for overcoming any existing obstacles to the ways in which causal knowledge flows between science and policy.

2023

2027