The importance of causality for policy makers | by Nobel laureate Guido Imbens

On the 30th of June 2022, winner of the 2021 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences and former Erasmus School of Economics student guido imbens visited his alma mater. During the day he gave an inspirational lecture wherein he discussed the importance of asking the right question and how to study causal effects in real world data sets.
Nobel Prize laureate
Dutch American Guido Imbens, Professor of Economics and Professor of Applied Econometrics at the prestigious Stanford Graduate School of Business, was awarded the Nobel Prize along with his colleague Joshua Angrist for their research in the mid-1990s into the possibility of so-called natural experiments to explain causal connections.The title of their award-winning research is 'methodological contribution to analysis of causal relationships'.
Guido Imbens is an alumnus of Erasmus School of Economics. He studied Econometrics in Rotterdam from which he graduated in 1983. After that he continued his research career in the United States.
About the lecture
In his lecture, Professor Imbens began with a short history of econometrics. Where he talked about the gradual move from randomized control trials towards leveraging sophisticated methods to identify causal effects from observational data. He continued with discussing some famous examples of econometricians identifying causal relationships in observational data. After his insightful lecture, Jonah Bol, Commissioner of Internal Affairs for study association AEclipse, interviewed Professor Imbens. They discussed Imbens’ time in Rotterdam and the influence Erasmus School of Economics and Professor Jan Tinbergen (1969 Nobel Prize winner) had on his career. By the end of the interview , the audience had the opportunity to ask their questions to the Nobel Prize winner.
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