Path Correlation Analysis

• An example calculation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLsD2Q4KhFI
• Wiki Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_analysis_(statistics)

The rules for path tracing are: (From wiki)

1. You can trace backward up an arrow and then forward along the next, or forwards from one variable to the other, but never forward and then back. Another way to think of this rule is that you can never pass out of one arrow head and into another arrowhead: heads-tails, or tails-heads, not heads-heads.
2. You can pass through each variable only once in a given chain of paths.
3. No more than one bi-directional arrow can be included in each path-chain.

These rules are for models without cycles. i.e. for Directed Acyclic Graph

In addition to being thought of as a form of multiple regression focusing on causality, path analysis can be viewed as a special case of structural equation modeling (SEM) – one in which only single indicators are employed for each of the variables in the causal model. That is, path analysis is SEM with a structural model, but no measurement model.