Scholarship@WashULaw
Text as Observational Data
Document Type
Book Section
Publication Date
2019
Publication Title
Law as Data: Computation, Text, and the Future of Legal Analysis
Abstract
Quantitative research has traditionally been focused on estimating the parameters by which different variables are related, with an emphasis on establishing causal relationships. It is well known that any study using observational data has to overcome fundamental challenges to its internal validity and precisely elucidate the reasoning and assumptions made about the counterfactual. In this chapter, we address this crucial concern in the context of the new wealth of textual observational data now available for quantitative approaches to legal studies. We also discuss at a high level the opportunities made possible by these new data, as well as the methodological considerations raised by the use of quantitative techniques in a domain heretofore dominated by qualitative approaches.
Keywords
Causal Inference, Observational Data, Textual Observational Data
Publication Citation
Marion Dumas & Jens Frankenreiter, Text as Observational Data, in Law as Data: Computation, Text, and the Future of Legal Analysis 59-70 (Michael A. Livermore & Daniel N. Rockmore eds., 2019).
Repository Citation
Frankenreiter, Jens and Dumas, Marion, "Text as Observational Data" (2019). Scholarship@WashULaw. 257.
https://openscholarship.wustl.edu/law_scholarship/257