The first part of the dissertation will contain an introduction that summarizes the relevance of the chosen topic in economic research, and that contextualizes the problem of causal inference in complex systems. Following the introduction, a comprehensive chapter that builds the framework for causal inference, in the literature, and in our specific case. Another chapter will comprise the critical review of the above. Finally, depending on the time available and on the needed to implement it, it would be interesting to include some applications to the PITEC panel dataset, which contains 120'000 observations relative to Spain from 2003 to 2012.