Is quantile regression a suitable method to understand tax incentives for charitable giving? Case study from the Canton of Geneva, Switzerland
Abstract: Under the current Swiss law, taxpayers can deduct charitable donations from their individual’s taxable income subject to a 20%-ceiling. This deductible ceiling was increased at the communal and cantonal level from a previous 5%-ceiling in 2009. The goal of the reform was boosting charitable giving to non-profit entities. However, the effects of this reform, and more generally of the existing Swiss system of tax deductions for charitable giving has never been empirically studied. The aim of this work is…
Causal Inference and Data Fusion
Please join us on Monday, May 2 at 4:00pm for the IDSS Distinguished Speaker Seminar with Elias Bareinboim (Columbia University).
Vladimir Dvorkin
Sampling rare events in Earth and planetary science
Abstract: This talk will cover recent work in our group developing and applying algorithms to simulate rare events in atmospheric science and other areas. I will review a rare event simulation scheme that biases model simulations toward the rare event of interest by preferentially duplicating simulations making progress toward the event and removing others. I will describe applications of this approach to rapid intensification of tropical cyclones and instability of Mercury's orbit with an emphasis on the elements of algorithm…
Fast Forward, One Year In: An MIT Climate “Plug-In”
After almost a year of progress on “Fast Forward: MIT’s Climate Plan for the Decade” we invite you to join us to hear more about what’s happening and to share your own ideas. Moderators: MIT Climate Nucleus co-chairs, Professors Noelle Selin and Anne White.
TPP Research to Policy Engagement Session with Dr. Lily Pollans
In her research, Dr. Lily Baum Pollans argues that, through municipal waste management, cities have potent agency to alter the structures that permit endless consumption, ultimately slowing, and maybe even reversing, the unsustainable one-way flow of materials through the economy. Waste policy-making and waste research can be messy and demanding. But the climate emergency and the many related ecological and social crises caused by our globally extractive and exploitative economic system demand this kind of complicated, and sometimes actually dirty,…
SES Dissertation Defense – Hanwei Li
Estimation and Optimization in Online Marketplaces ABSTRACT The emergence of e-commerce business models (such as Airbnb and Amazon) brings opportunities and challenges to their operations. This thesis studies several estimation and optimization problems within the online platform domain, using data-driven approaches in operations management. The thesis consists of three components. Motivated by the unique setting of Airbnb, in the first work, we consider a game-theoretical setup in which each seller on the platform provides a single-unit product and competes with…
SES & IDPS Dissertation Defense
Misinformation, Persuasion, and News Media on Social Networks ABSTRACT Social media platforms have become a popular source of news and information for a large segment of the society across the political spectrum: Users receive information, share digital contents, or attend to some online publishers for latest news. However, the recent proliferating and fast-spreading misinformation and false news has affected people’s perception about the veracity of online information and in turn their social behavior. In such an environment of real and…