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Potential Outcomes
“An individual causal effect compares two futures, but only one can be observed.”
01 / SUMMARY
In short
The framework defines an outcome for each unit under treatment and another under control. Their difference is the individual effect, but the unseen counterfactual creates the fundamental causal-inference problem.
03 / SCENE
In the wild
For one student we observe the grade with tutoring or without it, never both in the same period under identical conditions.
04 / LIMIT
The limit
Data do not reveal an individual counterfactual without design and assumptions; average effects need not describe every person.
FINAL NOTE
What remains
State precisely which alternative outcome provides the comparison.