National Science Foundation

Wage gaps across race and gender persist among equally educated individuals, and have been attributed in significant part to differences in behavior during job search. Economic theory suggests that access to information about the labor market influences behavior. If information differs across groups, either in quantity or quality, this can lead to differences in job choice. Across race and gender, unequal access to networks and mentoring has been shown to give rise to these information gaps.

n recent years, it has become increasingly apparent that computational techniques are deeply embedded in every stage of the American democratic process. Prominent examples include computational redistricting and the increased use of statistical analysis in polling and forecasts. This project will historicize the role of computers, as well as algorithmic thinking and mathematical rationales, in the constitution of American representative democracy in the twentieth century.

Decisions about coronavirus response are necessarily based on statistical models of prevalence, transmission risks, case fatality rate, projection of future spread of infection, and estimated effects of medical and social interventions. Much of this modeling and inference is being done using the Bayesian framework, an approach to statistics that is well suited to integration of information from different sources and accounting for uncertainty in predictions that can be input into decision analysis.