Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Economics

PDF

Bias

Articles 1 - 30 of 43

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Women Are More Likely To Use Tentative Language, I Think: A Literary And Statistical Analysis Of Ulysses By James Joyce And Debate Speech, Cozette Blumenfeld, Claire Bracken, Tomas Dvorak Jun 2022

Women Are More Likely To Use Tentative Language, I Think: A Literary And Statistical Analysis Of Ulysses By James Joyce And Debate Speech, Cozette Blumenfeld, Claire Bracken, Tomas Dvorak

Honors Theses

Language and its utilization can provide valuable information about individuals and their cultural norms. Negotiation is a major factor of the gender wage gap, perpetuated by gender bias. This paper seeks to discover—does language influence gendered cultural norms? Or reflect it? This thesis is divided into eight sections that engage the relationship between gender and language in literature and debate speech. Through critical literary and statistical analysis of the “Penelope” and “Proteus” chapters of Ulysses by James Joyce, it is evident that the female chapter’s invalidation found in literary criticism is from the reception of her speech, and not the …

Go to article

Economic Experiments On Group Identity And Bias, Nathaniel Christopher Burke May 2022

Economic Experiments On Group Identity And Bias, Nathaniel Christopher Burke

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Experiments in economics have been a valuable tool to understand the behavioral implications of incentives on the decision-making process. Particularly, aspects of decision making that cannot be observed in empirical data can be better isolated in an experimental setting such as bias and identity impacts. This dissertation uses three distinct experiments to further the understanding of individual biases, perceptions, and identity and how they impact the way people defer to these internal traits under incentives. This dissertation looks at how well individuals can make inferences about polling data that was collected from individuals susceptible to socially desirable responding. It also …

Go to article

Invisible Hurdles: Gender And Institutional Differences In The Evaluation Of Economics Papers, Fulya Ersoy, Jennifer Pate Jan 2022

Invisible Hurdles: Gender And Institutional Differences In The Evaluation Of Economics Papers, Fulya Ersoy, Jennifer Pate

Economics Faculty Works

How might the visibility of an author’s name and/or institutional affiliation allow bias to enter the evaluation of economics papers? We ask highly qualified journal editors to review abstracts of solo-authored papers which differ along the dimensions of gender and institution of the author. We exogenously vary whether editors observe the name and/or institution of the author. We identify positive name visibility effects for female economists and positive institution visibility effects for economists at the top institutions. Our results suggest that male economists at top institutions benefit the most from non-blind evaluations, followed by female economists (regardless of their institution).

Go to article

The Giver: Vision & Memory, Alexander J. Dontre Nov 2021

The Giver: Vision & Memory, Alexander J. Dontre

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

A memory hole is the banishment of problematic thoughts. We exile that which we prefer not to exist. Enter the perilous Memory Hole: The Psychology of Dystopia, to explore a legion of social and psychological themes through the lens of dystopian literature. The crushing fist of 1984 annihilating thoughts from existence as a means of persuasion. The exquisite seduction of addiction as an agent of control in Brave New World. Incineration of the written word to bask in the embers of peace of mind in Fahrenheit 451. Each chapter weaves in and out of the dystopian realms forged …

Go to article

Refusal Bias In Hiv Data From The Demographic And Health Surveys: Evaluation, Critique And Recommendations, Oyelola A. Adegboye, Tomoki Fujii, Denis H. Y. Leung Mar 2020

Refusal Bias In Hiv Data From The Demographic And Health Surveys: Evaluation, Critique And Recommendations, Oyelola A. Adegboye, Tomoki Fujii, Denis H. Y. Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

Non-response is a commonly encountered problem in many population-based surveys. Broadly speaking, non-response can be due to refusal or failure to contact the sample units. Although both types of non-response may lead to bias, there is much evidence to indicate that it is much easier to reduce the proportion of non-contacts than to do the same with refusals. In this article, we use data collected from a nationally representative survey under the Demographic and Health Surveys program to study non-response due to refusals to HIV testing in Malawi. We review existing estimation methods and propose novel approaches to the estimation …

Go to article

Corrigendum To "On Time-Varying Factor Models: Estimation And Testing" [J. Econometrics 198 (2017) 84-101], Liangjun Su, Xia Wang Feb 2020

Corrigendum To "On Time-Varying Factor Models: Estimation And Testing" [J. Econometrics 198 (2017) 84-101], Liangjun Su, Xia Wang

Research Collection School Of Economics

We note that Su and Wang (2017, On Time-varying Factor Models: Estimation and Testing, Journal of Econometrics 198, 84-101) ignore the bias terms when estimating the time-varying factor models. In this note, we correct the theoretical results on the estimation of time-varying factor models. The asymptotic results for testing the correct specification of time invariant factor loadings are not affected.

Go to article

Diversity, Bias, And Student Outcomes, Amanda J. Schmidt Jan 2020

Diversity, Bias, And Student Outcomes, Amanda J. Schmidt

Honors Theses

This paper examines how racially-motivated bias incidents relate to college students’ academic outcomes, and how this relationship differs across race. There is evidence that students’ academic outcomes are negatively impacted by bias, particularly among marginalized groups. This could have severe impacts on equality, overall student success, and future outcomes. I use Colby College student-level data to analyze the effects of bias incidents on both changes in individuals’ GPAs, and differences in probability of retention across individuals. I analyze the effects of one severe bias incident in the Spring of 2009, and the effects of several bias incidents which occurred over …

Go to article

In-Group Bias And The Police: Evidence From Award Nominations, Nayoung Rim, Roman G. Rivera, Bocar A. Ba Oct 2019

In-Group Bias And The Police: Evidence From Award Nominations, Nayoung Rim, Roman G. Rivera, Bocar A. Ba

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper examines the impact of in-group bias on the internal dynamics of a police department. Prior studies have documented racial bias in policing, but little is known about bias against officers due to lack of available data. We construct a novel panel dataset of Chicago Police Department officers, with detailed information on officer characteristics and work productivity. Exploiting quasi-random variation in supervisor assignment, we find that white supervisors are less likely to nominate black officers than white or Hispanic officers. We find weaker evidence that male supervisors are less likely to nominate female officers than male officers. We explore …

Go to article

Refusal Bias In Hiv Data From The Demographic And Health Surveys: Evaluation, Critique And Recommendations, Oyelola A. Adegboye, Tomoki Fujii, Denis H. Y. Leung Feb 2019

Refusal Bias In Hiv Data From The Demographic And Health Surveys: Evaluation, Critique And Recommendations, Oyelola A. Adegboye, Tomoki Fujii, Denis H. Y. Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

Non-response is a commonly encountered problem in many population-based surveys. Broadly speaking, non-response can be due to refusal or failure to contact the sample units. Although both types of non-response may lead to bias, there is much evidence to indicate that it is much easier to reduce the proportion of non-contacts than to do the same with refusals. In this article, we use data collected from a nationally-representative survey under the Demographic and Health Surveys program to study non-response due to refusals to HIV testing in Malawi. We review existing estimation methods and propose novel approaches to the estimation of …

Go to article

Indirect Inference In Spatial Autoregression, Maria Kyriacou, Peter C. B. Phillips, Francesca Rossi Jun 2017

Indirect Inference In Spatial Autoregression, Maria Kyriacou, Peter C. B. Phillips, Francesca Rossi

Research Collection School Of Economics

Ordinary least-squares (OLS) is well known to produce an inconsistent estimator of the spatial parameter in pure spatial autoregression (SAR). In this paper, we explore the potential of indirect inference to correct the inconsistency of OLS. Under broad conditions, it is shown that indirect inference (II) based on OLS produces consistent and asymptotically normal estimates in pure SAR regression. The II estimator used here is robust to departures from normal disturbances and is computationally straightforward compared with quasi-maximum likelihood (QML). Monte Carlo experiments based on various specifications of the weight matrix show that: (a) the II estimator displays little bias …

Go to article

Indirect Inference In Spatial Autoregression, Maria Kyriacou, Peter C. B. Phillips, Francesca Rossi Jun 2017

Indirect Inference In Spatial Autoregression, Maria Kyriacou, Peter C. B. Phillips, Francesca Rossi

Research Collection School Of Economics

Ordinary least-squares (OLS) is well known to produce an inconsistent estimator of the spatial parameter in pure spatial autoregression (SAR). In this paper, we explore the potential of indirect inference to correct the inconsistency of OLS. Under broad conditions, it is shown that indirect inference (II) based on OLS produces consistent and asymptotically normal estimates in pure SAR regression. The II estimator used here is robust to departures from normal disturbances and is computationally straightforward compared with quasi-maximum likelihood (QML). Monte Carlo experiments based on various specifications of the weight matrix show that: (a) the II estimator displays little bias …

Go to article

In-Fill Asymptotic Theory For Structural Break Point In Autoregression: A Unified Theory, Liang Jiang, Xiaohu Wang, Jun Yu May 2017

In-Fill Asymptotic Theory For Structural Break Point In Autoregression: A Unified Theory, Liang Jiang, Xiaohu Wang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper obtains the exact distribution of the maximum likelihood estimatorof structural break point in the OrnsteinñUhlenbeck process when a continuousrecord is available. The exact distribution is asymmetric, tri-modal, dependenton the initial condition. These three properties are also found in the önite sampledistribution of the least squares (LS) estimator of structural break point inautoregressive (AR) models. Motivated by these observations, the paper then developsan in-öll asymptotic theory for the LS estimator of structural break point inthe AR(1) coe¢ cient. The in-öll asymptotic distribution is also asymmetric, trimodal,dependent on the initial condition, and delivers excellent approximationsto the önite sample distribution. Unlike …

Go to article

Bias In The Estimation Of Mean Reversion In Continuous-Time Levy Processes, Yong Bao, Aman Ullah, Yun Wang, Jun Yu Sep 2015

Bias In The Estimation Of Mean Reversion In Continuous-Time Levy Processes, Yong Bao, Aman Ullah, Yun Wang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

This paper develops the approximate bias of the ordinary least squares estimator of the mean reversion parameter in continuous-time Levy processes. Several cases are considered, depending on whether the long-run mean is known or unknown and whether the initial condition is fixed or random. The approximate bias is used to construct a bias corrected estimator. The performance of the approximate bias and the bias corrected estimator is examined using simulated data.

Go to article

A Closer Look At Immigrants' Wage Differential In The U.S.: Analysis Correcting The Sample Selection Problem, Mitsuki Fukuda Jun 2015

A Closer Look At Immigrants' Wage Differential In The U.S.: Analysis Correcting The Sample Selection Problem, Mitsuki Fukuda

Honors Theses

Due to the increasing flow of immigrants into the United States in recent years, numerous researchers have been examining the socioeconomic characteristics of immigrants including wage differential. However, the majority of such wage analysis raises a key issue of the sample selection problem. This problem occurs when one has a non-random sample by ignoring the decision process to be participants of the sample, and it has a potential danger of a biased and inconsistent estimation. In the view of this, it is important to estimate the decision factors of employment status – being a wage earner or self-employed – before …

Go to article

Pitfalls And Possibilities In Predictive Regression, Peter C.B. Phillips Jun 2015

Pitfalls And Possibilities In Predictive Regression, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Financial theory and econometric methodology both struggle in formulating models that are logically sound in reconciling short run martingale behaviour for financial assets with predictable long run behavior, leaving much of the research to be empirically driven. The present paper overviews recent contributions to this subject, focussing on the main pitfalls in conducting predictive regression and on some of the possibilities offered by modern econometric methods. The latter options include indirect inference and techniques of endogenous instrumentation that use convenient temporal transforms of persistent regressors. Some additional suggestions are made for bias elimination, quantile crossing amelioration, and control of predictive …

Go to article

Halbert White Jr. Memorial Jfec Lecture: Pitfalls And Possibilities In Predictive Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips Jun 2015

Halbert White Jr. Memorial Jfec Lecture: Pitfalls And Possibilities In Predictive Regression, Peter C. B. Phillips

Research Collection School Of Economics

Financial theory and econometric methodology both struggle in formulating models that are logically sound in reconciling short-run martingale behavior for financial assets with predictable long-run behavior, leaving much of the research to be empirically driven. The present article overviews recent contributions to this subject, focusing on the main pitfalls in conducting predictive regression and on some of the possibilities offered by modern econometric methods. The latter options include indirect inference and techniques of endogenous instrumentation that use convenient temporal transforms of persistent regressors. Some additional suggestions are made for bias elimination, quantile crossing amelioration, and control of predictive model misspecification.

Go to article

On The Effect And Remedies Of Shrinkage On Classification Probability Estimation, Zhengxiao Wu, Yufeng Liu, Zhengxiao Wu Jul 2013

On The Effect And Remedies Of Shrinkage On Classification Probability Estimation, Zhengxiao Wu, Yufeng Liu, Zhengxiao Wu

Research Collection School of Economics

Shrinkage methods have been shown to be effective for classification problems. As a form of regularization, shrinkage through penalization helps to avoid overfitting and produces accurate classifiers for prediction, especially when the dimension is relatively high. Despite the benefit of shrinkage on classification accuracy of resulting classifiers, in this article, we demonstrate that shrinkage creates biases on classification probability estimation. In many cases, this bias can be large and consequently yield poor class probability estimation when the sample size is small or moderate. We offer some theoretical insights into the effect of shrinkage and provide remedies for better class probability …

Go to article

Bias In The Mean Reversion Estimator In Continuous-Time Gaussian And Lévy Processes, Yong Bao, Aman Ullah, Yun Wang, Jun Yu Mar 2013

Bias In The Mean Reversion Estimator In Continuous-Time Gaussian And Lévy Processes, Yong Bao, Aman Ullah, Yun Wang, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Continuous-time Levy processes have become increasingly popular in the asset pricing literature and estimation of the mean reversion parameter has attracted attention recently. This paper develops the approximate nite-sample bias of the ordinary least squares or quasi maximum likelihood estimator of the mean reversion parameter in continuous-time Levy processes. Simulations show that in general the approximate bias works well in capturing the true bias of the mean reversion estimator under difference scenarios. However, when the time span is small and the mean reversion parameter is approaching its lower bound, we find it more difficult to approximate well the nite-sample bias.

Go to article

Comment, Dean D. Croushore Jan 2012

Comment, Dean D. Croushore

Economics Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Go to article

Transparency Through Insurance: Mandates Dominate Discretion, Tom Baker Jan 2012

Transparency Through Insurance: Mandates Dominate Discretion, Tom Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

This chapter describes how liability insurance has contributed to the transparency of the civil justice system. The chapter makes three main points. First, much of what we know about the empirics of the civil justice system comes from access to liability insurance data and personnel. Second, as long as access to liability insurance data and personnel depends on the discretion of liability insurance organizations, this knowledge will be incomplete and, most likely, biased in favor of the public policy agenda of the organizations providing discretionary access to the data. Third, although mandatory disclosure of liability insurance data would improve transparency, …

Go to article

Bias In Estimating Multivariate And Univariate Diffusions, Xiaohu Wang, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu Apr 2011

Bias In Estimating Multivariate And Univariate Diffusions, Xiaohu Wang, Peter C. B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Research Collection School Of Economics

Multivariate continuous time models are now widely used in economics and finance. Empirical applications typically rely on some process of discretization so that the system may be estimated with discrete data. This paper introduces a framework for discretizing linear multivariate continuous time systems that includes the commonly used Euler and trapezoidal approximations as special cases and leads to a general class of estimators for the mean reversion matrix. Asymptotic distributions and bias formulae are obtained for estimates of the mean reversion parameter. Explicit expressions are given for the discretization bias and its relationship to estimation bias in both multivariate and …

Go to article

Bias In Estimating Multivariate And Univariate Diffusions, Xiaohu Wang, Peter C.B. Phillips, Jun Yu Jan 2011

Bias In Estimating Multivariate And Univariate Diffusions, Xiaohu Wang, Peter C.B. Phillips, Jun Yu

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

Multivariate continuous time models are now widely used in economics and finance. Empirical applications typically rely on some process of discretization so that the system may be estimated with discrete data. This paper introduces a framework for discretizing linear multivariate continuous time systems that includes the commonly used Euler and trapezoidal approximations as special cases and leads to a general class of estimators for the mean reversion matrix. Asymptotic distributions and bias formulae are obtained for estimates of the mean reversion parameter. Explicit expressions are given for the discretization bias and its relationship to estimation bias in both multivariate and …

Go to article

Alternative Technical Efficiency Measures: Skew, Bias And Scale, Qu Feng, William C. Horrace Jun 2010

Alternative Technical Efficiency Measures: Skew, Bias And Scale, Qu Feng, William C. Horrace

Economics - All Scholarship

In the fixed-effects stochastic frontier model an efficiency measure relative to the best firm in the sample is universally employed. This paper considers a new measure relative to the worst firm in the sample. We find that estimates of this measure have smaller bias than those of the traditional measure when the sample consists of many firms near the efficient frontier. Moreover, a two-sided measure relative to both the best and the worst firms is proposed. Simulations suggest that the new measures may be preferred depending on the skewness of the inefficiency distribution and the scale of efficiency differences.

Go to article

Estimating Hypothetical Bias In Economically Emergent Africa: A Generic Public Good Experiment, Arthur J. Caplan, David Aadland, Anthony Macharia Jan 2010

Estimating Hypothetical Bias In Economically Emergent Africa: A Generic Public Good Experiment, Arthur J. Caplan, David Aadland, Anthony Macharia

Applied Economics Faculty Publications

This paper reports results from a contingent valuation based public good experiment conducted in the African nation of Botswana. In a sample of university students, we find evidence that stated willingness to contribute to a public good in a hypothetical setting is higher than actual contribution levels. However, results from regression analysis suggest that this is true only in the second round of the experiment, when participants making actual contributions have learned to significantly lower their contribution levels. As globalization expands markets, and economies such as Botswana's continue to modernize, there is a growing need to understand how hypothetical bias …

Go to article

Is There Country-Of-Origin Bias In The Video Game Market?, Keaton C. White Apr 2009

Is There Country-Of-Origin Bias In The Video Game Market?, Keaton C. White

Economics Honors Projects

This paper tests for the existence of country-of-origin bias in the video game market. Using aggregate sales data from Japan and the US, I measure the effect of country-of-origin on video game sales in each respective country while controlling for genre, system, quality, and target age group, as well as domestically targeted games and superstar effects. I find that a significant country-of-origin bias exists in both game markets in favor of domestic titles.

Go to article

The Social Construction Of Successful Market Reforms, David Stuckler, Lawrence King, Greg Patton Jan 2009

The Social Construction Of Successful Market Reforms, David Stuckler, Lawrence King, Greg Patton

PERI Working Papers

The transition from socialism to capitalism has spawned a large literature on comparative policy reforms. While many sociologists using qualitative data have concluded that neo-liberal reforms led to negative outcomes, a large body of cross-national literature, mostly from economics and political science, claims that more neo-liberal reforms produced better economic and political outcomes. These latter studies almost all use measures of policy reform constructed by economists at the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). We show, using the EBRD’s own data, that their indices of progress in market reforms are biased in the direction of positive growth. That is, …

Go to article

Optimal Bandwidth Choice For Interval Estimation In Gmm Regression, Yixiao Sun, Peter C.B. Phillips May 2008

Optimal Bandwidth Choice For Interval Estimation In Gmm Regression, Yixiao Sun, Peter C.B. Phillips

Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers

In time series regression with nonparametrically autocorrelated errors, it is now standard empirical practice to construct confidence intervals for regression coefficients on the basis of nonparametrically studentized t -statistics. The standard error used in the studentization is typically estimated by a kernel method that involves some smoothing process over the sample autocovariances. The underlying parameter ( M ) that controls this tuning process is a bandwidth or truncation lag and it plays a key role in the finite sample properties of tests and the actual coverage properties of the associated confidence intervals. The present paper develops a bandwidth choice rule …

Go to article

Racial Bias In The Nba: Implications In Betting Markets, Tim Larsen, Joe Prince, Justin Wolfers Apr 2008

Racial Bias In The Nba: Implications In Betting Markets, Tim Larsen, Joe Prince, Justin Wolfers

Faculty Publications

Recent studies have documented the existence of an own-race bias on the part of sports officials. In this paper we explore the implications of these biases on betting markets. We use data from the 1991/92 - 2004/05 NBA regular seasons to show that a betting strategy exploiting own-race biases by referees would systematically beat the spread.

Go to article

Improved Maximum-Likelihood Estimation For The Common Shape Parameter Of Several Weibull Populations, Zhenlin Yang, Dennis K. J. Lin Sep 2007

Improved Maximum-Likelihood Estimation For The Common Shape Parameter Of Several Weibull Populations, Zhenlin Yang, Dennis K. J. Lin

Research Collection School Of Economics

The biasness problem of the maximum-likelihood estimate (MLE) of the common shape parameter of several Weibull populations is examined in detail. A modified MLE (MMLE) approach is proposed. In the case of complete and Type II censored data, the bias of the MLE can be substantial. This is noticeable even when the sample size is large. Such a bias increases rapidly as the degree of censorship increases and as more populations are involved. The proposed MMLE, however, is nearly unbiased and much more efficient than the MLE, irrespective of the degree of censorship, the sample sizes, and the number of …

Go to article

Bias In Dynamic Panel Estimation With Fixed Effects, Incidental Trends And Cross Section Dependence, Peter C. B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul Mar 2007

Bias In Dynamic Panel Estimation With Fixed Effects, Incidental Trends And Cross Section Dependence, Peter C. B. Phillips, Donggyu Sul

Research Collection School Of Economics

Explicit asymptotic bias formulae are given for dynamic panel regression estimators as the cross section sample size N --> ∞. The results extend earlier work by Nickell [1981. Biases in dynamic models with fixed effects. Econometrica 49, 1417-1426] and later authors in several directions that are relevant for practical work, including models with unit roots, deterministic trends, predetermined and exogenous regressors, and errors that may be cross sectionally dependent. The asymptotic bias is found to be so large when incidental linear trends are fitted and the time series sample size is small that it changes the sign of the autoregressive …

Go to article

Next Last