Causal Mechanism Registry

The Causal Mechanism Registry is an open, versioned registry of named causal mechanisms: the recurring processes through which events unfold. A model knows a great deal about these processes, but it does not use the same name for the same process every time, and it easily slides from one process to a neighbouring one. Each entry gives one process a stable identifier, a name, a definition, a scope, a boundary that says which neighbouring entry takes a case instead, and a test: what must be on record for the entry to apply. Relations between entries are reciprocal. The entry form is not tied to one subject.

The current collection covers crises and the processes around them in economics, finance, economic history and politics: financial crisis and banking crisis, bank runs, currency crisis and sovereign debt crisis, inflation and recession, herd behavior, escalation of commitment, legitimacy and succession crises, the collapse of states, war, famines, epidemics, natural disasters and displacement.

Use it to name the mechanism behind an event precisely, to tell neighbouring processes apart and to see what evidence each one needs: an energy price rise is not by itself a supply shock; a falling currency is not by itself a sovereign funding crisis; high inflation is not by itself cost inflation. It is meant for researchers, students, analysts, journalists and writers who study cause and effect and want to cite the exact version they used.

The server is read-only and needs no sign-in. It serves every published version, from 1.0.0 to the latest, and defaults to the latest; list_versions gives each version's date, DOI and entry count. Tools: search entries, read one entry in full with its versioned source address and citation line, resolve a display name or a retired identifier to the current one, list entries by layer and review state, list versions with their DOIs, and cite a version. Search and fetch forms are included for clients that expect them. Search covers all published entries; accepted entries rank first and every result states its review state.

Limitations: the vocabulary describes processes. It is not a forecast or a recommendation, holds no market data, and says nothing about any country, market or instrument today. Entries and search are in English.

Source: github.com/adenkarabal/causal-mechanism-registry. Licence CC BY 4.0. DOI 10.5281/zenodo.23248221 (all versions).

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