gov3009-l February 2011

gov3009-l@lists.fas.harvard.edu

1 participants
5 discussions

by Matt Blackwell

Hi all, I'm sorry to let you know that we won't be having Applied Statistics this week due to speaker illness. We will, however, be back and ready for action next Wednesday, 3/2, when we have Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Lieberman Aiden presenting their exciting recent paper in Science, "Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books." If you haven't seen this work, you can take a look at their website for culturomics to learn more: http://www.culturomics.org/ Be sure to check out the Google Ngram Viewer, which is based on their work: http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/ Cheers, matt. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Matthew Blackwell PhD Candidate Institute for Quantitative Social Science Department of Government Harvard University url: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~blackwel/

13 years, 2 months

Wolos Pattanayak on "What Difference Representation?”

by Matt Blackwell

Hello, We hope you can join us tomorrow, Wednesday, February 16th at the Applied Statistics Workshop when we will be happy to have Cassandra Wolos Pattanayak presenting joint work with Jim Greiner. Their paper focuses on an experiment where offers of legal representation were randomized to claimants. You will find an abstract and a link to the paper below. As usual, the workshop will begin at 12 noon with lunch and wrap up at 1:30. "What Difference Representation?” (with Jim Greiner) Cassandra Wolos Pattanayak Harvard Department of Statistics February 16th, 2011, 12 noon K354 CGIS Knafel (1737 Cambridge St) Paper: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1708664&download=yes Abstract: We report the results of the first in a series of randomized control trials designed to measure the effect of an offer of, and the actual use of, legal representation. The results are unexpected. In the context of administrative litigation to determine eligibility for unemployment benefits, a service provider’s offer of representation to a claimant had no statistically significant effect on the claimant’s probability of a victory, but the offer caused a delay in the proceeding. Because a substantial percentage of the provider’s client base consisted of claimants who were initially denied benefits but who would have that initial denial reversed as a result of the litigation, the offer of representation inflicted a harm upon such claimants in the form of an additional waiting time for benefits to begin, this with no discernible increase in the probability of a favorable outcome. In other words, within the limits of statistical uncertainty, these claimants would have been better off without the offer of representation. The size of the delay (a median effect of about 16 days, depending on how measured) was not large in absolute terms, and would be negligible in many other legal settings, but was relevant in the context of this particular administrative and legal framework, one in which speed has remained an extraordinary concern for decades. Moreover, in a small number of cases with a certain profile, the delay caused the unemployment system to continue paying benefits erroneously for a longer period of time, potentially imposing costs on the financing of the unemployment system. We were also able to verify a delay effect due to the actual use of (as opposed to an offer of) representation; we could come to no firm conclusion on the effect of actual use of representation on win loss. We caution against both over- and under-generalization of these study results. Stepping back, we use these results as a springboard for a comprehensive review of the quantitative literature on the effect of representation in civil proceedings. We find that this literature provides virtually no credible information, excepting the results of two randomized evaluations occurring in different legal contexts and separated by over three decades. We conclude by advocating for, and describing challenges associated with, a large program of randomized evaluation of the provision of representation, particularly by legal services providers. Cheers, matt. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Matthew Blackwell PhD Candidate Institute for Quantitative Social Science Department of Government Harvard University url: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~blackwel/

13 years, 2 months

Tingley on “A Statistical Method for Empirical Testing of Competing Theories”

by Matt Blackwell

Hi all, Please join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop next Wednesday, February 9th, when we are excited to have Dustin Tingley from the Department of Government presenting joint work with Kosuke Imai. You will find a link to the paper below. As usual, the workshop will begin with a light lunch at 12 noon, followed by the presentation at 12:15. “A Statistical Method for Empirical Testing of Competing Theories” (with Kosuke Imai) Dustin Tingley Assistant Professor, Departmtent of Government Wednesday, February 9th, 12 noon CGIS K354 (1737 Cambridge St.) Paper: http://imai.princeton.edu/research/files/mixture.pdf Cheers, matt. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Matthew Blackwell PhD Candidate Institute for Quantitative Social Science Department of Government Harvard University url: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~blackwel/

13 years, 2 months

Tomorrow's (2/2) Applied Statistics Cancelled

by Matt Blackwell

Hi all, Due to the poor weather and shut down of non-essential/non-critical Harvard activities, we are cancelling tomorrow's Applied Statistics Workshop. We have rescheduled Patrick Perry for April 13th, so we won't miss his talk. We will return to normal programming next week (2/9) with Dustin Tingley (as along as there is not another two feet of snowfall that day). Stay warm, matt. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Matthew Blackwell PhD Candidate Institute for Quantitative Social Science Department of Government Harvard University url: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~blackwel/

13 years, 2 months

Perry on "Point process modeling for directed interaction networks"

by Matt Blackwell

Hi there, We hope that you can join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop this Wednesday, February 2nd when we will be happy to have Patrick Perry from the Statistics and Information Sciences Laboratory here at Harvard. Patrick will be presenting joint work with Patrick Wolfe on directed interaction networks. You will find an abstract and link to the paper below. As always, we will serve a light lunch and the talk will begin around 12:15p. “Point process modeling for directed interaction networks” Patrick Perry and Patrick Wolfe Statistics and Information Sciences Laboratory, Harvard University CGIS K354 (1737 Cambridge St.) Wednesday, February 2nd 12 noon Abstract: Network data often take the form of repeated interactions between senders and receivers tabulated over time. Rather than reducing these data to binary ties, a model is introduced for treating directed interactions as a multivariate point process: a Cox multiplicative intensity model using covariates that depend on the history of the process. Consistency and asymptotic normality are proved for the resulting partial-likelihood-based estimators under suitable regularity conditions, and an efficient fitting procedure is described. Multicast interactions--those involving a single sender but multiple receivers--are treated explicitly. A motivating data example shows the effects of reciprocation and group-level preferences on message sending behavior in a corporate e-mail network. Paper: http://arxiv.org/abs/1011.1703 Cheers, matt. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Matthew Blackwell PhD Candidate Institute for Quantitative Social Science Department of Government Harvard University url: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~blackwel/

13 years, 2 months

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gov3009-l February 2011