IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hal/journl/hal-04538521.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Explications et équivalence observationnelle : quelques questions à partir d’un modèle économique simple du comportement

Author

Listed:
  • Etienne Billette de Villemeur

    (LEM - Lille économie management - UMR 9221 - UA - Université d'Artois - UCL - Université catholique de Lille - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique)

Abstract

Assume a « perfect explanation » in that there is a causal model that associates to each set of parameters a unique consequence. Suppose furthermore that the explanation is precise and with no ambiguity in that different outcomes are associated with different parameters – and vice-versa. Should one be satisfied? We show by the means of a simple example that several « perfect explanation » may co-exist. More generally, data need not to be scare, or observations imperfect for « observationally equivalent » explanations to exist. Explanations with an identical predictive power cannot be distinguished on the basis of the sole observations they explain. This indistinguishability raises questions however on the status to be given to their (a priori different) implications. In any case, no matter the amount of data, observations provide only a partial ranking of concurrent explanations.

Suggested Citation

  • Etienne Billette de Villemeur, 2023. "Explications et équivalence observationnelle : quelques questions à partir d’un modèle économique simple du comportement," Post-Print hal-04538521, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04538521
    DOI: 10.3917/bhesv.301.0035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hal:journl:hal-04538521. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: CCSD (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.