EA-l't Many things may impact an individual's earnings. These include an individual's innate ability, their education and developed skills, their social network, and apparent luck. For example, it is hard to know if students who take "FIN 510: Big Data Analytics\" ultimately make more money because the course causes them to earn more, or because of all the other things about these students that are exceptional to begin with. However, ifit were possible to randomly assign some Mastes students into FIN 510 while randomly blocking others, the difference in future earnings and promotions between these two groups would reect the average causal effect of the course