Review of Mariusz Maziarz’s The Philosophy of Causality in Economics: Causal Inferences and Policy Proposals. New York: Routledge, 2020, xiv + 208 pp.

Abstract

It is common to find causal statements in economics journals. In a recent article, for example, Babina et al. claim that “negative federal funding shocks reduce high-tech entrepreneurship and publications but increase patenting” (2023, 1). Unfortunately, t he actual meaning of ‘cause’ is not always explicitly spelled out. What does ‘cause’ mean in these statements? Do they connote the same meaning? More concretely, what do economists mean when they say X causes Y ? These questions motivate Mariusz Ma-ziarz’s i ntriguing book on causality. Based on a previous systematic literature analysis