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Publications

At the Computational Policy Lab, we publish academic papers and general-interest pieces on a variety of issue at the nexus of public policy, computer science, and statistics. Below is a sampling of this work, categorized by topic.

Discrimination & Fairness

The Measure and Mismeasure of Fairness: A Critical Review of Fair Machine Learning

Sam Corbett-Davies, Sharad Goel

Learning to be Fair: A Consequentialist Approach to Equitable Decision-Making

Alex Chohlas-Wood, Madison Coots, Emma Brunskill, Sharad Goel
Code

Omitted and Included Variable Bias in Tests for Disparate Impact

Jongbin Jung, Sam Corbett-Davies, Ravi Shroff, Sharad Goel

A Causal Framework for Observational Studies of Discrimination

Johann Gaebler, William Cai, Guillaume Basse, Ravi Shroff, Sharad Goel, Jennifer Hill
Code

Breaking Taboos in Fair Machine Learning: An Experimental Study

Julian Nyarko, Sharad Goel, Roseanna Sommers
Conference on Equity and Access in Algorithms, Mechanisms, and Optimization (EAAMO 2021)
Commentary in the Boston Globe

Racial Disparities in Automated Speech Recognition

Allison Koenecke, Andrew Nam, Emily Lake, Joe Nudell, Minnie Quartey, Zion Mengesha, Connor Toups, John Rickford, Dan Jurafsky, Sharad Goel
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 117, 2020
Listen to audio samples - Data & Code

Fair Allocation through Selective Information Acquisition

William Cai, Johann Gaebler, Nikhil Garg, Sharad Goel
Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES 2020)

Fast Threshold Tests for Detecting Discrimination

Emma Pierson, Sam Corbett-Davies, Sharad Goel
The 21st International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Statistics (AISTATS 2018)
Awarded Best Paper at AISTATS 2018

Algorithmic Decision Making and the Cost of Fairness

Sam Corbett-Davies, Emma Pierson, Avi Feller, Sharad Goel, and Aziz Huq
Proceedings of the 23rd Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD 2017)

The Problem of Infra-marginality in Outcome Tests for Discrimination

Camelia Simoiu, Sam Corbett-Davies, and Sharad Goel
Annals of Applied Statistics, Vol. 11, 2017
Data - code

Algorithmic Decision Making in the Presence of Unmeasured Confounding

Jongbin Jung, Ravi Shroff, Avi Feller, and Sharad Goel

Criminal Justice

Identifying and Measuring Excessive and Discriminatory Policing

Alex Chohlas-Wood, Marissa Gerchick, Sharad Goel, Aziz Huq, Amy Shoemaker, Ravi Shroff, Keniel Yao
University of Chicago Law Review (Forthcoming)

Empirical Approaches to Identify Systemic Discrimination in Policing

Alex Chohlas-Wood, Marissa Gerchick, Sharad Goel, Aziz Huq, Amy Shoemaker, Ravi Shroff, Keniel Yao, Sharad Goel
Inequality Reader (Forthcoming)

The Accuracy, Equity, and Jurisprudence of Criminal Risk Assessment

Sharad Goel, Ravi Shroff, Jennifer Skeem, Christopher Slobogin
Research Handbook on Big Data Law, 2021

Blind Justice: Algorithmically Masking Race in Charging Decisions

Alex Chohlas-Wood, Joe Nudell, Keniel Yao, Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin, Julian Nyarko, Sharad Goel
Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES 2021)

A Large-scale Analysis of Racial Disparities in Police Stops Across the United States

Emma Pierson, Camelia Simoiu, Jan Overgoor, Sam Corbett-Davies, Daniel Jenson, Amy Shoemaker, Vignesh Ramachandran, Phoebe Barghouty, Cheryl Phillips, Ravi Shroff, Sharad Goel
Nature Human Behaviour, Vol. 4, 2020
Stanford Open Policing Project - Supporting Information - Commentary in Slate

The Limits of Human Predictions of Recidivism

Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin, Jongbin Jung, Sharad Goel, Jennifer Skeem
Science Advances, Vol. 6, 2020
Commentary in The Washington Post - Data & Code

Guiding Prosecutorial Decisions with an Interpretable Statistical Model

Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin, Alex Chohlas-Wood, Sharad Goel
Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES 2019)

An Analysis of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department’s Traffic Stop Practices

Alex Chohlas-Wood, Sharad Goel, Amy Shoemaker, and Ravi Shroff

Improving the California Bail Reform Act

Marissa Gerchick, Sam Corbett-Davies, Elan Dagenais, and Sharad Goel

Designing Equitable Algorithms for Criminal Justice Reform

Sam Corbett-Davies and Sharad Goel

Police Data Suggests Black and Hispanic Drivers Are Searched More Often Than Whites

Sharad Goel and Cheryl Phillips
Slate

Even Imperfect Algorithms Can Improve the Criminal Justice System

Sam Corbett-Davies, Sharad Goel, and Sandra González-Bailón
The New York Times

A computer program used for bail and sentencing decisions was labeled biased against blacks. It’s actually not that clear.

Sam Corbett-Davies, Emma Pierson, Avi Feller, and Sharad Goel
The Washington Post

Combatting Police Discrimination in the Age of Big Data

Sharad Goel, Maya Perelman, Ravi Shroff, and David Sklansky
New Criminal Law Review, Vol. 20, 2017

Stop-And-Frisk Did Not Work “Incredibly Well”

Sharad Goel and David Sklansky
The Huffington Post

Personalized Risk Assessments in the Criminal Justice System

Sharad Goel, Justin Rao, and Ravi Shroff
The American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, Vol. 106, 2016

Precinct or Prejudice? Understanding Racial Disparities in New York City's Stop-and-Frisk Policy

Sharad Goel, Justin Rao, and Ravi Shroff
Annals of Applied Statistics, Vol. 10, 2016
Processed stop-and-frisk data as an RData file; original NYPD data

Voting Rights

Blocks as Geographic Discontinuities: The Effect of Polling Place Assignment on Voting

Sabina Tomkins, Keniel Yao, Johann Gaebler, Tobias Konitzer, David Rothschild, Marc Meredith, Sharad Goel

One Person, One Vote: Estimating the Prevalence of Double Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections

Sharad Goel, Marc Meredith, Michael Morse, David Rothschild, and Houshmand Shirani-Mehr
American Political Science Review, Vol. 114, 2020
Commentary in Slate - Interview on This American Life

Chasing Electoral Ghosts

Sharad Goel, Marc Meredith, Michael Morse, David Rothschild, and Houshmand Shirani-Mehr
Slate

Things I Mean to Know

Sharad Goel
This American Life

Political Polarization

Echo Chambers and Partisan Polarization: Evidence from the 2016 Presidential Campaign

Erik Peterson, Sharad Goel, and Shanto Iyengar
Political Science Research and Methods, 2020

Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Online News Consumption

Seth Flaxman, Sharad Goel, and Justin Rao
Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 80, 2016

Fair and Balanced? Quantifying Media Bias through Crowdsourced Content Analysis

Ceren Budak, Sharad Goel, and Justin Rao
Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 80, 2016

Political Ideology and Racial Preferences in Online Dating

Ashton Anderson, Sharad Goel, Gregory Huber, Neil Malhotra, and Duncan J. Watts
Sociological Science, Vol. 1, 2014

Real and Perceived Attitude Agreement in Social Networks

Sharad Goel, Winter Mason, and Duncan Watts
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 99, No. 4, 2010, 611-621

Election Polling

Disentangling Bias and Variance in Election Polls

Houshmand Shirani-Mehr, David Rothschild, Sharad Goel, and Andrew Gelman
Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 113, 2018
Commentary in The New York Times

High-Frequency Polling with Non-Representative Data

Andrew Gelman, Sharad Goel, David Rothschild, and Wei Wang
Routledge Studies in Global Information, Politics and Society (book chapter), 2016

The Mythical Swing Voter

Andrew Gelman, Sharad Goel, Doug Rivers, and David Rothschild
Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Vol. 11, 2016

Forecasting Elections with Non-Representative Polls

Wei Wang, David Rothschild, Sharad Goel, and Andrew Gelman
International Journal of Forecasting, Vol 31, 2015

Online, Opt-in Surveys: Fast and Cheap, but are they Accurate?

Sharad Goel, Adam Obeng, and David Rothschild

Decision-Making

Probability Paths and the Structure of Predictions over Time

Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin, Hao Sheng, Sharad Goel
Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2021)
Supplementary Information

Simple Rules to Guide Expert Classifications

Jongbin Jung, Connor Concannon, Ravi Shroff, Sharad Goel, Daniel G. Goldstein
Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series A, Vol. 183, 2020
Commentary in Harvard Business Review

Creating Simple Rules for Complex Decisions

Jongbin Jung, Connor Concannon, Ravi Shroff, Sharad Goel, and Daniel G. Goldstein
Harvard Business Review

Bayesian Sensitivity Analysis for Offline Policy Evaluation

Jongbin Jung, Ravi Shroff, Avi Feller, Sharad Goel
Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES 2020)

Privacy & Security

Surveilling Surveillance: Estimating the Prevalence of Surveillance Cameras with Street View Data

Hao Sheng, Keniel Yao, Sharad Goel
Conference on AI, Ethics, and Society (AIES 2021)
View camera locations - Data & Code

“I was told to buy a software or lose my computer. I ignored it”: A study of ransomware

Camelia Simoiu, Christopher Gates, Joseph Bonneau, Sharad Goel
Fifteenth Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS 2019)

De-Anonymizing Web Browsing Data with Social Networks

Ansh Shukla, Jessica Su, Sharad Goel, and Arvind Narayanan
Proceedings of the 26th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2017)

Understanding Emerging Threats to Online Advertising

Ceren Budak, Sharad Goel, Justin Rao, Georgios Zervas
Proceedings of the 17th ACM Conference on Economics & Computation (EC 2016)

Why You Shouldn’t Be Comforted by Internet Providers’ Promises to Protect Your Privacy

Sharad Goel and Arvind Narayanan
Slate

Education

Bandit Algorithms to Personalize Educational Chatbots

William Cai, Joshua Grossman, Zhiyuan (Jerry) Lin, Hao Sheng, Johnny Tian-Zheng Wei, Joseph Jay Williams, Sharad Goel
Machine Learning, 2021

What Statistics Can't Tell Us in the Fight over Affirmative Action at Harvard

Andrew Gelman, Sharad Goel, and Daniel E. Ho
Boston Review

Creating Crowdsourced Research Talks at Scale

Rajan Vaish, Shirish Goyal, Amin Saberi, and Sharad Goel
Proceedings of the 27th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2018)
Video clip - Stanford Scholar

Crowd Research: Open and Scalable University Laboratories

Rajan Vaish, Snehalkumar (Neil) S. Gaikwad, Geza Kovacs, Andreas Veit, Ranjay Krishna, Imanol Arrieta Ibarra, Camelia Simoiu, Michael Wilber, Serge Belongie, Sharad Goel, James Davis, and Michael S. Bernstein
Proceedings of the 30th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2017)

An Invisible Minority: Asian-Americans in Mathematics

Sharad Goel
Notices of the American Mathematical Society, Vol. 53, No. 8, 2006, 878-882

Public Health

Respondent Driven Sampling—Where We Are and Where Should We be Going?

Richard White, Amy Lansky, Sharad Goel, David Wilson, Wolfgang Hladik, Avi Hakim, and Simon DW Frost
Sexually Transmitted Infections, Vol. 88, No. 6, 2012, 397-399

Assessing Respondent-Driven Sampling

Sharad Goel and Matthew Salganik
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107, No. 15, 2010, 6743-6747

Respondent-Driven Sampling as Markov Chain Monte Carlo

Sharad Goel and Matthew Salganik
Statistics in Medicine, Vol. 28, No. 17, 2009, 2202-2229

Social Networks

An Experimental Study of Structural Diversity in Social Networks

Jessica Su, Krishna Kamath, Aneesh Sharma, Johan Ugander, Sharad Goel
The 14th International Conference On Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2020)
Awarded Best Paper at ICWSM 2020

Studying the “Wisdom of Crowds” at Scale

Camelia Simoiu, Chiraag Sumanth, Alok Mysore, Sharad Goel
The 7th AAAI Conference on Human Computation and Crowdsourcing (HCOMP 2019)
Awarded Best Paper at HCOMP 2019

The Effect of Recommendations on Network Structure

Jessica Su, Aneesh Sharma, Sharad Goel
Proceedings of the 25th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2016)

Information Diffusion

The Structural Virality of Online Diffusion

Sharad Goel, Ashton Anderson, Jake Hofman, and Duncan J. Watts
Management Science, Vol. 62, 2016

The Structure of Online Diffusion Networks

Sharad Goel, Duncan J. Watts, and Daniel G. Goldstein
Proceedings of the 13th ACM Conference on Economics & Computation (EC 2012)

Social Search in “Small-World” Experiments

Sharad Goel, Roby Muhamad, and Duncan Watts
Proceedings of the 18th International World Wide Web Conference (WWW 2009)