gov3009-l March 2011

gov3009-l@lists.fas.harvard.edu

1 participants
4 discussions

McKay on "A New Foundation for the Multinomial Logit Model"

by Matt Blackwell

Hi all, We hope that you can join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop this Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 when we will be happy to have Alisdair McKay from the Department of Economics at Boston University. 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. “Rational Inattention to Discrete Choices: A New Foundation for the Multinomial Logit Model” Alisdair McKay Department of Economics, Boston University CGIS K354 (1737 Cambridge St.) Wednesday, March 30th, 2011 12 noon Abstract: Often, individuals must choose among discrete alternatives with imperfect information about their values, such as selecting a job candidate, a vehicle or a university. Before choosing, they may have an opportunity to study the options, but doing so is costly. This costly information acquisition creates new choices such as the number of and types of questions to ask the job candidates. We model these situations using the tools of the rational inattention approach to information frictions (Sims, 2003). We nd that the decision maker's optimal strategy results in choosing probabilistically exactly in line with the multinomial logit model. This provides a new interpretation for a workhorse model of discrete choice theory. We also study cases for which the multinomial logit is not applicable, in particular when two options are duplicates. In such cases, our model generates a generalization of the logit formula, which is free of the limitations of the standard logit. Paper: http://people.bu.edu/amckay/pdfs/logit.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

Chaney on "Revolt on the Nile"

by Matt Blackwell

We hope you can join us at the Applied Statistics Workshop this Wednesday, March 23rd, when we are excited to have Eric Chaney from the Department of Economics here at Harvard. Eric will be presenting his paper entitled “Revolt on the Nile: Economic Shocks, Religion and Political Influence.” You'll find an abstract and a link to the paper below. As usual, we will begin at 12 noon with a light lunch and wrap up by 1:30pm. “Revolt on the Nile: Economic Shocks, Religion and Political Influence" Eric Chaney Department of Economics, Harvard University Wednesday, March 23rd, 12 noon CGIS Knafel 354 (1737 Cambridge St) Paper: http://www.iq.harvard.edu/events/sites/iq.harvard.edu.events/files/nilepape… Abstract: Can religious leaders use their popular influence to political ends? This paper explores this question using over 700 years of Nile flood data. Results show that deviant Nile floods were related to significant decreases in the probability of change of the highest-ranking religious authority. Qualitative evidence suggests this decrease reflects an increase in political power stemming from famine-induced surges in the religious authority's control over popular support. Additional empirical results support this interpretation by linking the observed probability decrease to the number of individuals a religious authority could influence. The paper concludes that the results provide empirical support for theories suggesting religion as a determinant of institutional outcomes. 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, 1 month

Rubin on "Are Job-Training Programs Effective?"

by Matt Blackwell

Hi all, We hope you can join us at the Applied Statistics Workshop this Wednesday, March 9th, when we are excited to have Don Rubin, the John L. Loeb Professor of Statistics here at Harvard University, who will be presenting recent work on job-training programs. You will find an abstract below. As usual, we will begin with a light lunch at 12 noon, with the presentation starting at 12:15p and wrapping up by 1:30p. "Are Job-Training Programs Effective?" Don Rubin John L. Loeb Professor of Statistics, Harvard University Wednesday, March 9th 12:00pm - 1:30pm CGIS Knafel K354 (1737 Cambridge St) Abstract: In recent years, job-training programs have become more important in many developed countries with rising unemployment. It is widely accepted that the best way to evaluate such programs is to conduct randomized experiments. With these, among a group of people who indicate that they want job-training, some are randomly assigned to be offered the training and the others are denied such offers, at least initially. Then, according to a well-defined protocol, outcomes, such as employment statuses or wages for those who are employed, are measured for those who were offered the training and compared to the same outcomes for those who were not offered the training. Despite the high cost of these experiments, their results can be difficult to interpret because of inevitable complications when doing experiments with humans. In particular, some people do not comply with their assigned treatment, others drop out of the experiment before outcomes can be measured, and others who stay in the experiment are not employed, and thus their wages are not cleanly defined. Statistical analyses of such data can lead to important policy decisions, and yet the analyses typically deal with only one or two of these complications, which may obfuscate subtle effects. An analysis that simultaneously deals with all three complications generally provides more accurate conclusions, which may affect policy decisions. A specific example will be used to illustrate essential ideas that need to be considered when examining such data. Mathematical details will not be pursued. Gov3009 website: http://www.iq.harvard.edu/events/node/1208 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, 1 month

Michel and Liberman Aiden on "Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books”

by Matt Blackwell

Hi all, We hope that you can join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop tomorrow, March 2nd when we will be happy to have Jean-Baptiste Michel (Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Psychology) and Erez Lieberman Aiden (Harvard Society of Fellows). You will find an abstract and a link to the paper below. As always, we will serve a light lunch and the talk will begin around 12:15p. “Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books” Jean-Baptiste Michel and Erez Lieberman Aiden CGIS K354 (1737 Cambridge St.) Wednesday, March 2nd 12 noon Abstract: We constructed a corpus of digitized texts containing about 4% of all books ever printed. Analysis of this corpus enables us to investigate cultural trends quantitatively. We survey the vast terrain of ‘culturomics,’ focusing on linguistic and cultural phenomena that were reflected in the English language between 1800 and 2000. We show how this approach can provide insights about fields as diverse as lexicography, the evolution of grammar, collective memory, the adoption of technology, the pursuit of fame, censorship, and historical epidemiology. Culturomics extends the boundaries of rigorous quantitative inquiry to a wide array of new phenomena spanning the social sciences and the humanities. Paper: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/331/6014/176.short 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, 1 month

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gov3009-l March 2011