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: 4.9793485e-05
Overall Rank: 11,345 | 23.73%
DOI: 10.14778/3749646.3749671

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
11,029	Graph-Based Retrieval-Augmented Generation: Applications, Challenges, Solutions, and Opportunities	2026	VLDB	4.9793485e-05
11,428	Versatile Property Graph Transformations	2025	VLDB	4.9793485e-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	0.00055043581
62	Maintaining Views Incrementally	1993	SIGMOD	0.00039045511
578	The Complexity of Causality and Responsibility for Query Answers and non-Answers	2011	VLDB	0.00016096504
1,482	PG-Schema: Schemas for Property Graphs	2023	SIGMOD	0.00010538703
1,494	Graph Pattern Matching in GQL and SQL/PGQ	2022	SIGMOD	0.00010502195
2,315	Causal Relational Learning	2020	SIGMOD	8.6532142e-05
2,831	PG-Keys: Keys for Property Graphs	2021	SIGMOD	7.9602632e-05
4,566	HYPER: Hypothetical Reasoning With What-If and How-To Queries Using a Probabilistic Causal Approach	2022	SIGMOD	6.5310568e-05
5,233	Implementation Strategies for Views over Property Graphs	2024	SIGMOD	6.2176841e-05
6,183	Causal Data Integration	2023	VLDB	5.8587542e-05
6,436	Summarized Causal Explanations For Aggregate Views	2024	SIGMOD	5.7853643e-05
8,586	ZaliQL: Causal Inference from Observational Data at Scale	2017	VLDB	5.3084457e-05
9,366	Transforming Property Graphs	2024	VLDB	5.1868213e-05
9,485	PG-Triggers: Triggers for Property Graphs	2024	SIGMOD	5.1708619e-05

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