What If: Causal Analysis with Graph Databases

Summary: Embeds DAGs and structural eqns as first-class constructs in property-graph DBs, adding causality-aware query semantics to declaratively express interventions and counterfactuals. Prototype shows scalable causal queries and DAG manipulation. (summarized by gpt-5-mini on Feb 09 2026)

Paper ID: h9bb39b7c13be5331
Venue: VLDB
Year: 2025
Pagerank: 4.9769913e-05
Overall Rank: 11,352 | 23.71%
DOI: 10.14778/3749646.3749671
PDF: Download (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Incoming Non-self Citations Over Time

No non-self incoming citations found for this paper in this database.

Authors

1. Amedeo Pachera (National Centre for Scientific Research; University of Lyon)
2. Mattia Palmiotto (National Centre for Scientific Research; University of Lyon)
3. Angela Bonifati (French Institute for Advanced Study; National Centre for Scientific Research; University of Lyon)
4. Andrea Mauri (National Centre for Scientific Research; University of Lyon)

BibTeX Citation

@article{pachera_vldb25,
        title = {{What If: Causal Analysis with Graph Databases}},
        author = {Pachera, Amedeo and Palmiotto, Mattia and Bonifati, Angela and Mauri, Andrea},
        journal = {PVLDB},
        series = {{VLDB} '25},
        volume = {18},
        number = {11},
        pages = {4009--4016},
        doi = {10.14778/3749646.3749671},
        url = {https://doi.org/10.14778/3749646.3749671},
        year = {2025}
}

Incoming Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 2 of 2 citing papers.

Rank	Citing Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
11,038	Graph-Based Retrieval-Augmented Generation: Applications, Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities	2026	VLDB	4.9769913e-05
11,434	Versatile Property Graph Transformations	2025	VLDB	4.9769913e-05

Outgoing Citations (Sorted by Pagerank)

Showing 14 of 14 cited papers.

Citations counted here include only citations to other VLDB/SIGMOD/CIDR/PODS papers in this database.

Rank	Cited Paper	Year	Venue	Pagerank
24	Data Integration: A Theoretical Perspective	2002	PODS	0.00055018384
62	Maintaining Views Incrementally	1993	SIGMOD	0.00039040346
578	The Complexity of Causality and Responsibility for Query Answers and non-Answers	2011	VLDB	0.00016093679
1,483	PG-Schema: Schemas for Property Graphs	2023	SIGMOD	0.00010533714
1,494	Graph Pattern Matching in GQL and SQL/PGQ	2022	SIGMOD	0.00010497226
2,318	Causal Relational Learning	2020	SIGMOD	8.6491185e-05
2,831	PG-Keys: Keys for Property Graphs	2021	SIGMOD	7.9564949e-05
4,568	HYPER: Hypothetical Reasoning With What-If and How-To Queries Using a Probabilistic Causal Approach	2022	SIGMOD	6.5279657e-05
5,238	Implementation Strategies for Views over Property Graphs	2024	SIGMOD	6.2147408e-05
6,186	Causal Data Integration	2023	VLDB	5.8559807e-05
6,438	Summarized Causal Explanations For Aggregate Views	2024	SIGMOD	5.7826256e-05
8,593	ZaliQL: Causal Inference from Observational Data at Scale	2017	VLDB	5.3059328e-05
9,375	Transforming Property Graphs	2024	VLDB	5.1843659e-05
9,496	PG-Triggers: Triggers for Property Graphs	2024	SIGMOD	5.168414e-05

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