Ashesh Rambachan (MIT Economics), "From Predictive Algorithms to Automatic Generation of Anomalies"
Abstract
Economic theories often progress through the discovery of anomalies. Canonical examples of anomalies include the Allais Paradox and the Kahneman-Tversky choice experiments, which are constructed menus of lotteries that highlighted particular flaws in expected utility theory and spurred the development of new theories for decision-making under risk. In this paper, we develop algorithmic procedures to automatically generate...
Stephanie Ternullo, "'It makes me sound like I’m a NIMBY; I'm not': Local Political Norms and Liberal Support for Housing"
Abstract
Under what conditions do affluent liberals vote in line with their ideology over their self-interest? Specifically, under what conditions do homeowning liberals prioritize their own interests over their ideological commitments when it comes to local land-use decisions? Several recent studies have sought to address this question by examining how different characteristics of hypothetical local developments or...
Julia Cage (Sciences Po, Paris), "The Far-Right Donation Gap" (joint with Moritz Hengel and Yuchen Huang)
Abstract
We document a widespread decline in the share of donors to charities in Western countries over the past decade and show that this can be in part explained by a lower propensity to donate among far-right voters. Focusing on France, we first conduct a large-scale survey (N = 12, 600) and show that far-right voters are significantly less likely to report a charitable donation than the rest of the population, conditional on a rich set of controls. Second, using administrative tax data for the universe of French municipalities (N ≃ 33, 000) combined with electoral results, we find that the negative relationship between vote shares for the far right and charitable donations holds in a broad range of specifications, at both the extensive and the intensive margin, and controlling for municipality fixed effects. Third, we exploit unique geo-localized donation data from several charities and document similar patterns. All evidence points towards a drop in the propensity to donate driven by a shift in social norms that threatens general acceptance of the charitable sector. We provide consistent evidence using survey data from Germany and novel tax data from Italy. ... Read more about Julia Cage (Alesina Seminar)
Zeyang Jia (Department of Statistics), "Bayesian Safe Policy Learning with Chance Constrained Optimization: Application to the Military Security Assessment in the Vietnam War"
Abstract
Algorithmic and data-driven decisions and recommendations are commonly used in high-stakes decision-making settings such as criminal justice, medicine, and public policy. We investigate whether it would have been possible to improve a security assessment algorithm employed during the Vietnam War, using outcomes measured immediately after its...
Matthew Dardet, "Respondent Psychology and Nonresponse Bias in Political Surveys"
Aidan Connaughton, "The Value of Public Comment for Local Bureaucrats"
Abstracts
"Respondent Psychology and Nonresponse Bias in Political Surveys"
Individuals’ personalities are correlated with many of their political attitudes, behaviors, beliefs, and identifications. Moreover, initial research has indicated that personality may play a role in determining survey nonresponse and in shaping within-survey response...
CGIS South, room S050 (Thomas Chan-Soo Kang Room) and virtual via Zoom
Speakers
The Spatial Data Lab Team (see full list below)
Abstract
This seminar will introduce the KNIME Analytics Platform and its Geospatial Analytics extension developed by the Spatial Data Lab (SDL) team at Harvard's Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA). The SDL team members will share the presentations, presenting the project's vision and demonstrating the new way of performing geospatial...
