Causes and Explanations in the Structural-Model Approach: Tractable Cases

TL;DR

This paper advances the understanding of causes and explanations in structural causal models by identifying classes where determining causes is computationally feasible, marking the first explicit tractability results in this area.

Contribution

It provides new characterizations of weak causes in specific classes of causal models, demonstrating tractability under certain restrictions.

Findings

Deciding causes and explanations is tractable for certain classes of models.

First explicit tractability results for the structural-model approach.

New characterizations of weak causes in restricted causal models.

Abstract

In this paper, we continue our research on the algorithmic aspects of Halpern and Pearl's causes and explanations in the structural-model approach. To this end, we present new characterizations of weak causes for certain classes of causal models, which show that under suitable restrictions deciding causes and explanations is tractable. To our knowledge, these are the first explicit tractability results for the structural-model approach.