What if recessions cause burglars, and burglars disable alarms, and alarms cause recessions?
One option is to make a much larger causal diagram that has variables recessions(t), burglars(t), and alarms(t) where t is a (say discrete) time variable, then have recessions(t) cause burglars(t+1), burglars(t) disabling alarms(t+1), and alarms(t) causing recessions(t+1).
Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that any of those things precedes the other like fire and heat; I meant that they caused each other, like a generator which is providing it’s own field current.
Yes, that’s what it means when you draw a causal arrow from recessions(t) to burglars(t+1), unless you think that recessions instantaneously cause burglars, etc.
It’s entirely possible that we lack the ability to distinguish information about t+1 from information about t. Do recessions cause burglars in less time than the resolution of our economic and police statistics? Can a recession cause burglaries which cause alarms which further cause more recession in such a manner as the original recession cannot be noticed?
One option is to make a much larger causal diagram that has variables recessions(t), burglars(t), and alarms(t) where t is a (say discrete) time variable, then have recessions(t) cause burglars(t+1), burglars(t) disabling alarms(t+1), and alarms(t) causing recessions(t+1).
Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that any of those things precedes the other like fire and heat; I meant that they caused each other, like a generator which is providing it’s own field current.
Yes, that’s what it means when you draw a causal arrow from recessions(t) to burglars(t+1), unless you think that recessions instantaneously cause burglars, etc.
It’s entirely possible that we lack the ability to distinguish information about t+1 from information about t. Do recessions cause burglars in less time than the resolution of our economic and police statistics? Can a recession cause burglaries which cause alarms which further cause more recession in such a manner as the original recession cannot be noticed?