Bug#893850: ITP: r-cran-whatif -- GNU R evaluate counterfactuals

[Andreas Tille]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist
Owner: Andreas Tille <tille at debian.org>

* Package name    : r-cran-whatif
  Version         : 1.5-9
  Upstream Author : Christopher Gandrud, Gary King, Ben Sabath, Heather Stoll, Langche Zeng
* URL             : https://cran.r-project.org/package=WhatIf
* License         : GPL
  Programming Lang: GNU R
  Description     : GNU R evaluate counterfactuals
 Inferences about counterfactuals are essential for prediction,
 answering what if questions, and estimating causal effects.
 However, when the counterfactuals posed are too far from the data at
 hand, conclusions drawn from well-specified statistical analyses
 become based largely on speculation hidden in convenient modeling
 assumptions that few would be willing to defend. Unfortunately,
 standard statistical approaches assume the veracity of the model
 rather than revealing the degree of model-dependence, which makes this
 problem hard to detect. WhatIf offers easy-to-apply methods to
 evaluate counterfactuals that do not require sensitivity testing over
 specified classes of models. If an analysis fails the tests offered
 here, then we know that substantive inferences will be sensitive to at
 least some modeling choices that are not based on empirical evidence,
 no matter what method of inference one chooses to use. WhatIf
 implements the methods for evaluating counterfactuals discussed in
 Gary King and Langche Zeng, 2006, "The Dangers of Extreme
 Counterfactuals," Political Analysis 14 (2) <DOI:10.1093/pan/mpj004>;
 and Gary King and Langche Zeng, 2007, "When Can History Be Our Guide? The
 Pitfalls of Counterfactual Inference," International Studies
 Quarterly 51 (March) <DOI:10.1111/j.1468-2478.2007.00445.x>.



Remark: This package is part of a pyramid of dependencies to package
 r-cran-zeligverse which is needed to run the full test suite of
 r-cran-zelig (see #883002).  It will be maintained by the r-pkg team at
      https://salsa.debian.org/r-pkg-team/r-cran-whatif