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2019

Melissa Dell presents "The Development Effects Of The Extractive Colonial Economy: The Dutch Cultivation System In Java", at CGIS Knafel Building (K354) - 12-1:30 pm, Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Abstract: Colonial powers typically organized economic activity in the colonies to maximize  their economic returns. While the literature has emphasized long-run negative economic impacts via institutional quality, the changes in economic organization implemented to spur production historically could also directly influence economic organization in the long-run, exerting countervailing effects. We examine these in the context  of the Dutch Cultivation System, the integrated industrial and agricultural system for producing sugar that formed the core of the Dutch...

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Na Li presents "Distributed Decision Making in Network Systems: Algorithms, Fundamental Limits, and Applications", at CGIS Knafel Building (K354) - 12-1:30 pm, Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Abstract: Recent radical evolution in distributed sensing, computation, communication, and actuation has fostered the emergence of cyber-physical network systems. Examples cut across a broad spectrum of engineering and societal fields such as power grids, swarm robotics, air/ground transportation systems, green buildings, and other societal networks. Regardless of the specific application, one central goal is to shape the network collective behavior through the design of admissible local decision-making algorithms. This is nontrivial especially due to the challenges...

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Kosuke Imai presents "Automated Coding of Political Campaign Advertisement Videos: An Empirical Validation Study", at CGIS Knafel Building (K354) - 12-1:30 pm, Wednesday, April 3, 2019

Abstract: Television advertisements play an essential role in modern political campaigns with several billion dollars spent in the 2018 general election.  For more than two decades, political scientists have studied TV ads by analyzing the hand-coded data from the Wisconsin Advertising Project (WAP) and its successor, the Wesleyan Media Project (WMP).  Unfortunately, manually coding hundreds of variables, such as issue mentions, opponent appearance, and negativity, for many videos is a laborious and expensive process.  We propose to automatically code...

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Michael Levin presents "Decision-making without brains: how biological systems process information" , at 12-1:30 pm - K354 - CGIS Knafel Building, Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Abstract: The cognitive powers of the brain evolved from much more ancient processes in which cells, tissues, and even molecular networks had to make decisions to optimize their function in a challenging world. In this talk, I will discuss the field of primitive cognition, focusing on a number of examples in which non-neural biological systems process information and make decisions. These include a) cells during embryogenesis, regeneration, and cancer, b) unicellular organisms such as slime molds, and c) synthetic organisms. I will also discuss non-neural bioelectricity...

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Mathias Sinning presents "Estimating Quantiles of the Distribution of Treatment Effects", at CGIS Knafel Building (K354) - 12-1:30 pm, Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Abstract: This paper proposes an approach to estimate quantiles of the distribution of treatment effects under the identifying assumption that treatment assignment is based on  observed characteristics. We use a matching approach to derive the distribution of treatment effects from differences in outcomes between matched treatment and control units.  Our parameters of interest may be interpreted as generalized versions of the quantile treatment effect (QTE) and the quantile treatment effect on the treated (QTT), which can be identified without imposing a rank...

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Ingmar Weber presents, "Tapping Into Public Advertising Data to Monitor Migration, Gender Gaps, Poverty and, Maybe, Censorship", at CGIS Knafel Building (K354) - 12-1:30 pm, Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Abstract: Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks provide advertisers with “audience estimates” on how many of their users match certain targeting criteria. These estimates are usually used for budget planning and include targeting criteria such as (i) countries a user has lived in, (ii) their gender, and (iii) the type of mobile device they use. In this talk I report on how we work with UN agencies and other partners to use this type of information to monitoring international migration, track digital gender gaps and map poverty. I’ll also discuss some observations...

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Roland Neil presents "Testing for Racial and Ethnic Discrimination in Police Stops", at CGIS Knafel Building (K354) - 12-1:30 pm, Wednesday, February 27, 2019

Abstract: Whether police discriminate on the basis of race and ethnicity when making stops is a topic of frequent debate among academics, in courts, and beyond. However, due to implausible assumptions about police behavior, the most commonly used tests are quite susceptible to indicating discrimination when it is not present or to indicating a lack of discrimination when it is present. This is true of research on the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) practice of Stop, Question, and Frisk (SQF), a particularly contentious case where findings have been mixed. Using data...

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Ankur Pandya presents "Modeling the Cost Effectiveness of Two Big League Pay-for-Performance Policies", at CGIS Knafel Building (K354) - 12-1:30 pm, Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Abstract: To date, evidence on pay-for-performance has been mixed. When pay-for-performance policies improve health outcomes, researchers should evaluate whether these health gains are worth the incremental costs (financial incentives and increased utilization) needed to achieve them. We used simulation modeling to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of two pay-for-performance policies that were recently evaluated in major journals: 1) a randomized controlled trial of financial incentives on patients, physicians, or both for cholesterol control (Asch et al. JAMA 2015...

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Ilya Shpitser presents "Fair Inference on Outcomes", at CGIS Knafel Building (K354) - 12-1:30 pm, Wednesday, February 13, 2019

Abstract: Systematic discriminatory biases present in our society influence the way data is collected and stored, the way variables are defined, and the way scientific findings are put into practice as policy. Automated decision procedures and learning algorithms applied to such data may serve to perpetuate existing injustice or unfairness in our society.  We consider how to solve prediction and policy learning problems in a way which ``breaks the cycle of injustice'' by correcting for the unfair dependence of outcomes, decisions, or both, on sensitive features (e.g...

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Maya Mathur presents "Sensitivity analysis for publication bias and selective reporting in meta-analysis" , at CGIS Knafel Building (K354) - 12-1:30 pm, Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Abstract: We propose sensitivity analyses for selection in meta-analysis due to publication bias, selective reporting, and "p-hacking". We consider a publication process such that "statistically significant'' positive results are more likely to be published than negative or "nonsignificant'' results by an unknown ratio. Using inverse-probability weighting and robust estimation that accommodates non-normal true effects, small meta-analyses, and clustering, we develop... Read more about Maya Mathur presents "Sensitivity analysis for publication bias and selective reporting in meta-analysis"

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