gov3009-l November 2011

gov3009-l@lists.fas.harvard.edu

1 participants
4 discussions

Applied Statistics Workshop: John Friedman on Wednesday, Nov. 30

by Konstantin Kashin

Dear all, Please join us for the last Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) of the semester this Wednesday, November 30 from 12.00 - 1.30 pm in CGIS Knafel Room 354. John Friedman, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, will give a presentation entitled "The Long-Term Impacts of Teachers: Teacher Value-Added and Students' Outcomes in Adulthood". As always, a light lunch will be provided. Abstract: *The use of test-score-based "value-added" (VA) measures to evaluate teachers is controversial, among other reasons, because (1) there is little evidence on whether high VA teachers improve student outcomes in adulthood and (2) there is debate about whether VA measures provide unbiased estimates of teacher quality. We address these issues by analyzing school district data from grades 3-8 for 2.5 million children linked to data on parents and adult outcomes from tax records. We find that the degree of bias due to selection is small using tests based on previously unobserved parent characteristics and a new quasi-experimental research design based on changes in teaching staff. We then show that high VA teachers increase their students' probability of college attendance, raise earnings, reduce teenage birth rates, and improve the quality of the neighborhood in which their students live in adulthood. The impacts of teacher VA are roughly constant across grades 4-8. A one standard deviation improvement in teacher VA in a single grade raises earnings by 1% at age 28. Replacing a teacher whose VA is in the bottom 5% with an average teacher would increase students' lifetime income by approximately $300,000 for the average classroom in our sample.* An up-to-date schedule for the workshop is available at http://www.iq.harvard.edu/events/node/1208. Best, Konstantin -- Konstantin Kashin Ph.D. Student in Government Harvard University Mobile: 978-844-0538 E-mail: kkashin(a)fas.harvard.edu Site: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~kkashin/

12 years, 4 months

No Applied Stats Workshop Wednesday, Nov. 23

by Konstantin Kashin

Dear all, The Applied Statistics Workshop will not be meeting this Wednesday, November 23 due to the holiday. Please join us the following week, on Wednesday Nov. 30, for the last session of the semester. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving break! Best, Konstantin -- Konstantin Kashin Ph.D. Student in Government Harvard University Mobile: 978-844-0538 E-mail: kkashin(a)fas.harvard.edu Site: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~kkashin/

12 years, 5 months

Applied Statistics Workshop: Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez on Wednesday, Nov. 16

by Konstantin Kashin

Dear all, Please join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) this Wednesday, November 16 from 12.00 - 1.30 pm in CGIS Knafel Room 354. Hiram Beltrán-Sánchez, a postdoctoral research fellow at the USC Davis School of Gerontology and at the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies, will give a talk entitled "New Evidence Linking Early and Late-life Mortality in European Cohorts". As always, a light lunch will be provided. Abstract: *Early environmental influences on later life health and mortality are well recognized. Using mortality data from 630 cohorts born throughout the 19th and early 20th century in nine European countries, we fitted a multilevel model to further explore the association between early life mortality with both the estimated mortality level at age 40 and the exponential (Gompertz) acceleration in mortality rates with age. Our findings strongly link early life mortality to both the cohort mortality level in mid-adulthood and the Gompertz rate of mortality acceleration during aging. Recent cohorts exposed to lower mortality environments early in life also showed lower mortality levels in adulthood. However, these gains were diminished by faster mortality accelerations at older age. Thus recent increases in adult survival are mainly due to declines in adult mortality levels rather than changes in the rate of aging. This analysis defines new links in the developmental origins of adult health and disease in which effects of early exposure to infections persist to adulthood and remain evident in the cohort rates of mortality at later ages.* An up-to-date schedule for the workshop is available at http://www.iq.harvard.edu/events/node/1208. Best, Konstantin -- Konstantin Kashin Ph.D. Student in Government Harvard University Mobile: 978-844-0538 E-mail: kkashin(a)fas.harvard.edu Site: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~kkashin/

12 years, 5 months

Applied Statistics Workshop: Tyler VanderWeele on Wednesday, Nov. 9

by Konstantin Kashin

Dear all, Please join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) this Wednesday, November 9 from 12.00 - 1.30 pm in CGIS Knafel Room 354. Tyler VanderWeele, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, will give a presentation entitled "Sensitivity Analysis for Contagion Effects in Social Networks". As always, a light lunch will be provided. The paper is available here <http://smr.sagepub.com/content/40/2/240.short>and the abstract is: *Analyses of social network data have suggested that obesity, smoking, happiness, and loneliness all travel through social networks. Individuals exert ''contagion effects'' on one another through social ties and association. These analyses have come under critique because of the possibility that homophily from unmeasured factors may explain these statistical associations and because similar findings can be obtained when the same methodology is applied to height, acne, and headaches, for which the conclusion of contagion effects seems somewhat less plausible. The author uses sensitivity analysis techniques to assess the extent to which supposed contagion effects for obesity, smoking, happiness, and loneliness might be explained away by homophily or confounding and the extent to which the critique using analysis of data on height, acne, and headaches is relevant. Sensitivity analyses suggest that contagion effects for obesity and smoking cessation are reasonably robust to possible latent homophily or environmental confounding; those for happiness and loneliness are somewhat less so. Supposed effects for height, acne, and headaches are all easily explained away by latent homophily and confounding. The methodology that has been used in past studies for contagion effects in social networks, when used in conjunction with sensitivity analysis, may prove useful in establishing social influence for various behaviors and states. The sensitivity analysis approach can be used to address the critique of latent homophily as a possible explanation of associations interpreted as contagion effects.* An up-to-date schedule for the workshop is available at http://www.iq.harvard.edu/events/node/1208. Best, Konstantin -- Konstantin Kashin Ph.D. Student in Government Harvard University Mobile: 978-844-0538 E-mail: kkashin(a)fas.harvard.edu Site: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~kkashin/

12 years, 5 months

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gov3009-l November 2011