Michael Peress presents "Does Newspaper Coverage Mediate the Economic Vote?"

Do voters punish incumbent governments when economic performance is poor or when the media report that economic performance is poor? We draw on an original data set of over 2 million newspaper articles reporting on the economy in 32 newspapers in 16 developed democracies over 32 years. We develop procedures for coding newspaper sentiment on the economy and apply our results to study the role of the media in driving the economic vote. Our results indicate voters respond directly to unemployment,...

Matt Taddy (Chicago Booth) presentation 

Title:  Counterfactual Prediction with Deep Instrumental Variables Networks

Abstract:

We are in the middle of a remarkable rise in the use and capability of artificial intelligence. Much of this growth has been fueled by the success of deep learning architectures: models that map from observables to outputs via multiple layers of latent representations. These deep learning algorithms are effective tools for unstructured prediction, and they can be combined in AI systems to solve complex automated...

Long-term causal effects via behavioral game theory

Random experiments are the gold standard in reliably comparing the causal effect of switching from a baseline policy to a new policy on socio-economic platforms. One critical shortcoming of classical methods, however, is that they do not take into account the dynamic nature of response to policy changes and may fail to capture long-term effects. We formalize a framework to define and estimate long-term causal effects of policy changes in multiagent economies, using behavioral game theory and a latent space...

The title of the presentation is:

"Gender Differences in Cooperative Environments? Evidence from the U.S. Congress" (joint with Stefano Gagliarducci)

Abstract: This paper uses data on bill sponsorship and cosponsorship in the U.S. House of Representatives to estimate gender differences in cooperative behavior. We employ a number of econometric methodologies to address the potential selection of female representatives into electoral districts with distinct preferences for cooperativeness, including regression discontinuity and matching. After...