gov3009-l March 2012

gov3009-l@lists.fas.harvard.edu

1 participants
3 discussions

Applied Statistics Workshop: Teppei Yamamoto on Wed., March 28

by Konstantin Kashin

Dear all, Please join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) this Wednesday, March 28 from 12.00 - 1.30 pm in CGIS Knafel Room 354. Teppei Yamamoto, Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science at MIT, will give a presentation entitled "A Multinomial Response Model for Varying Choice Sets, with Application to Partially Contested Multiparty Elections". As always, a light lunch will be provided. Abstract: > This paper proposes a new multinomial choice model which explicitly takes > into account variation in choice sets across observations. The proposed > varying choice set logit model relaxes the independence of irrelevant > alternatives assumption by allowing the individual random utility function > to directly depend on choice set types, and can be applied to a variety of > data in which some individuals can only choose from a subset of the > theoretically possible responses. Both frequentist and Bayesian > simulation-based estimation procedures are developed using the Monte Carlo > expectation-maximization algorithm and Markov chain Monte Carlo, > respectively. The proposed model can be used to analyze survey data in > partially contested multiparty elections in which some political parties do > not run their candidates in every district. For illustration, I apply the > proposed method to the 1996 Japanese general election, where none of the > districts was contested by all of the six major parties. 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://www.konstantinkashin.com/<http://people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ekkashin/>

12 years, 1 month

Applied Statistics Workshop: David Reshef on Wed., March 21

by Konstantin Kashin

Dear all, Please join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) this Wednesday, March 21 from 12.00 - 1.30 pm in CGIS Knafel Room 354. David Reshef <http://web.mit.edu/dnreshef/www/>, an MD/PhD student at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology (HST), will give a presentation entitled "Detecting Novel Bivariate Associations in Large Data Sets". As always, a light lunch will be provided. For those interested, here is the project website<http://www.exploredata.net/>and the accompanying *Science* article<http://www.sciencemag.org/content/334/6062/1518.abstract?ijkey=cRCIlh2G7Aji…> . Abstract: > Identifying interesting relationships between pairs of variables in large > data sets is increasingly important. One way of doing so is to search such > data sets for pairs of variables that are closely associated. This can be > done by calculating some measure of dependence for each pair, ranking the > pairs by their scores, and examining the top-scoring pairs. We outline two > heuristic properties--generality and equitability--that the statistic we > use to measure dependence should have in order for such a strategy to be > effective. > We present a measure of dependence for two-variable relationships, the > maximal information coefficient (MIC), that has these properties. MIC > captures a wide range of associations both functional and not (generality), > and assigns similar scores to relationships with similar noise levels, > regardless of relationship type (equitability). Finally, we show that MIC > belongs to a larger class of maximal information-based nonparametric > exploration (MINE) statistics for identifying and classifying relationships. 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://www.konstantinkashin.com/<http://people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ekkashin/>

12 years, 1 month

Applied Statistics Workshop: Joshua Goodman on Wed., March 7

by Konstantin Kashin

Dear all, Please join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) this Wednesday, March 7 from 12.00 - 1.30 pm in CGIS Knafel Room 354. Joshua Goodman <http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/jgoodma1/>, Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, will give a presentation entitled "Flaking Out: Snowfall, Disruptions of Instructional Time, and Student Achievement". As always, a light lunch will be provided. Abstract: > Recent research on charter schools, summer learning loss, and > international achievement suggests that instructional time is a critical > input to the education production function. Using student and school-grade > fixed effects models with data from Massachusetts, I find no relation > between school closures and achievement but a strong relation between > student absences and achievement. I then confirm these results using > temporal and spatial variation in snowfall to provide better > identification. Extreme snowfall induces school closures but does not > affect achievement. Moderate snowfall induces student absences and does > reduce achievement. Instrumental variables estimates suggest that each > absence induced by bad weather reduces math achievement by 0.05 standard > deviations. These results are consistent with a model of instruction in > which coordination of students is the central challenge. Teachers deal well > with coordinated disruptions of instructional time like school closures, > but deal poorly with absences that affect different students and different > times. These estimates suggest that absences are responsible for up to 20% > of the achievement gap between poor and nonpoor students. They also suggest > that policies designed solely to increase instructional time may not be > effective. 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://www.konstantinkashin.com/<http://people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ekkashin/>

12 years, 1 month

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gov3009-l March 2012