Publications

2023
Article

Provable Detection of Propagating Sampling Bias in Prediction Models

By: Pavan Ravishankar, Qingyu Mo, Edward McFowland III and Daniel B. Neill

With an increased focus on incorporating fairness in machine learning models, it becomes imperative not only to assess and mitigate bias at each stage of the machine learning pipeline but also to understand the downstream impacts of bias across stages. Here we consider... View Details

2019
Working Paper

Labor Market Shocks and the Demand for Trade Protection: Evidence from Online Surveys

By: Rafael Di Tella and Dani Rodrik

We study preferences for government action in response to layoffs resulting from different types of labor-market shocks. We consider the following shocks: technological change, a demand shift, bad management, and three kinds of international outsourcing. Respondents... View Details

Keywords: Labor; Markets; System Shocks; Trade; Attitudes; Surveys

25 Feb 2019
Research & Ideas

How Gender Stereotypes Kill a Woman’s Self-Confidence

abilities, likely from a very young age,” Coffman says. “Until we can change these stereotypes, it’s essential to think about how we can better inoculate individuals from biases induced by stereotypes, helping people to pursue fulfilling... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

Program

Finance for Senior Executives

divisional levels Recognize and address biases within financial systems and structures Identify the best performance metrics Forecast and monitor outcomes with greater confidence Improve collaboration with senior-level peers Become a more... View Details

March 2021
Article

Bayesian Signatures of Confidence and Central Tendency in Perceptual Judgment

By: Yang Xiang, Thomas Graeber, Benjamin Enke and Samuel Gershman

This paper theoretically and empirically investigates the role of Bayesian noisy cognition in perceptual judgment, focusing on the central tendency effect: the well-known empirical regularity that perceptual judgments are biased towards the center of the... View Details

Keywords: Visual Perception; Bayesian Modeling; Perception; Judgments

Register to Read

December 2020
Supplement

Video Interview with Pandwe Gibson

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter and Joyce J. Kim

Four diverse women entrepreneurs launched their ventures in a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem that was part of a shift to a creative technology-driven economy for Miami. Although Miami was rated the #1 U.S. city for startups in 2017, the region contained structural... View Details

Keywords: Female Entrepreneur; Entrepreneurial Ecosystems; Sexism; Racism; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Diversity; Gender; Race; Prejudice and Bias; City; Culture; Miami

Purchase

August 28, 2018
Article

Maintaining Trust When Agents Can Engage in Self-deception

By: Andres Babino, Hernan A. Makse, Rafael Di Tella and Mariano Sigman

The coexistence of cooperation and selfish instincts is a remarkable characteristic of humans. Psychological research has unveiled the cognitive mechanisms behind self-deception. Two important findings are that a higher ambiguity about others’ social preferences leads... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Economics; Cognitive Neuroscience; Corruption; Cooperation; Self-deception; Trust; Behavior

2023
Working Paper

Feature Importance Disparities for Data Bias Investigations

By: Peter W. Chang, Leor Fishman and Seth Neel

It is widely held that one cause of downstream bias in classifiers is bias present in the training data. Rectifying such biases may involve context-dependent interventions such as training separate models on subgroups, removing features with bias in the collection... View Details

Keywords: AI and Machine Learning; Analytics and Data Science; Prejudice and Bias

June 2011
Article

Truth in Giving: Experimental Evidence on the Welfare Effects of Informed Giving to the Poor

By: Christina Fong and Felix Oberholzer-Gee

It is often difficult for donors to predict the value of charitable giving because they know little about the persons who receive their help. This concern is particularly acute when making contributions to organizations that serve heterogeneous populations. While we... View Details

Keywords: Philanthropy and Charitable Giving; Policy; Information; Knowledge Acquisition; Game Theory; Prejudice and Bias; Poverty; Welfare

05 Dec 2023
Research & Ideas

Lessons in Decision-Making: Confident People Aren't Always Correct (Except When They Are)

of “first-order importance” for understanding behavioral economics’ influence on social science. “Although behavioral economists have put great energies into studying how nudges, frames, familiarity, and learning influence biases... View Details

Keywords: by Kara Baskin

28 Apr 2015
First Look

First Look: April 28

Publications April 2015 HarperBusiness Strategy Rules: Five Timeless Lessons from Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs By: Yoffie, David B., and Michael A. Cusumano Abstract—The authors of the bestselling Competing on Internet Time (a Business Week top 10 book)... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2017
Article

True Happiness: The Role of Morality in the Concept of Happiness

By: Jonathan Phillips, Julian De Freitas, Christian Mott, June Gruber and Joshua Knobe

Recent scientific research has settled on a purely descriptive definition of happiness that is focused solely on agents' psychological states (high positive affect, low negative affect, high life satisfaction). In contrast to this understanding, recent research has... View Details

Keywords: Moral Cognition; Happiness; Moral Sensibility; Emotions; Well-being

2020
Working Paper

Strategic Foresight as Dynamic Capability: A New Lens on Knightian Uncertainty

By: J. Peter Scoblic

This paper proposes to treat strategic foresight as a dynamic capability, providing a new theoretical lens on managerial judgment. Formulating strategy under uncertainty is a central challenge facing the modern firm. Analogy is thought to help managers make sense of... View Details

Keywords: Foresight; Dynamic Capabilities; Managerial Judgment; Risk and Uncertainty; Management; Strategy

Article

Default Neglect in Attempts at Social Influence

By: Julian Zlatev, David P. Daniels, Hajin Kim and Margaret A. Neale

Current theories suggest that people understand how to exploit common biases to influence others. However, these predictions have received little empirical attention. We consider a widely studied bias with special policy relevance: the default effect, which is the... View Details

Keywords: Social Influence; Default Effect; Nudges; Choice Architecture; Decision Making; Behavior

16 Mar 2010
First Look

First Look: March 16

judgments made with clear incentives for objectivity. The consistency we observe between public and private judgments indicates that participants believed their biased assessments. Our results suggest that the psychology of conflict of... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

Person Page

Curriculum Vitae

Noel Watson

View Details

18 Sep 2014
Working Paper Summaries

Institutional Strategies in Emerging Markets

Keywords: by Christopher Marquis & Mia Raynard

2018
Working Paper

How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel

Many production processes are subject to inspection to ensure they meet quality, safety, and environmental standards imposed by companies and regulators. Inspection accuracy is critical to inspections being a useful input to assessing risks, allocating quality... View Details

Keywords: Assessment; Bias; Inspection; Scheduling; Econometric Analysis; Empirical Research; Regulation; Health; Food; Safety; Quality; Performance Consistency; Performance Evaluation; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry

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