Hi everyone,

This Friday, February 5 at noon Eastern time, the International Methods
Colloquium will host a presentation by Andy Eggers (University of Chicago).
Andy's presentation is entitled "Placebo Tests for Causal Inference."

The abstract of the talk is as follows:

Estimates of treatment effects using observational data can be biased due
to confounding, model misspecification, and other reasons. A placebo test
offers a complementary diagnostic for evaluating these threats to inference
by checking for a relationship that should be found in the data if the main
estimates are biased but should be absent otherwise. Drawing on a
comprehensive survey of recent empirical work in political science, this
paper defines placebo tests, introduces a typology of tests, and analyzes
what makes them informative. We discuss examples of placebo tests that
effectively address different types of bias; we also point out tests and
types of tests that we argue are largely uninformative, and we highlight
the problem of 'null hacking' in the design of placebo tests.


This presentation is based on joint work with Allan Dafoe and Guadalupe
Tunon.

To tune in to the presentation and participate in the discussion after the
talk, visit http://www.methods-colloquium.com/ and click "Watch Now!" on
the day of the talk. To register for the talk in advance, click here:

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_RtlpKlsLQk22hwZW4AB4YQ

The IMC uses Zoom, which is free to use for listeners and works on PCs,
Macs, and iOS and Android tablets and phones. You can be a part of the talk
from anywhere around the world with access to the Internet. The
presentation and Q&A will last for a total of one hour.

I hope to see you there!

-JE

--

Dr. Justin Esarey
Associate Professor of Politics and International Affairs
Wake Forest University
Voice: (678) 383-9629
Fax: (336) 758-6104
E-mail:  <[log in to unmask]>[log in to unmask]
Web: www.justinesarey.com

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