Fairness in Algorithmic Profiling: The AMAS Case

We study a controversial application of algorithmic profiling in the public sector, the Austrian AMAS system. AMAS was supposed to help caseworkers at the Public Employment Service (PES) Austria to allocate support measures to job seekers based on their predicted chance of (re-)integration into the labor market. Shortly after its release, AMAS was criticized for its apparent unequal treatment of job seekers based on gender and citizenship. We systematically investigate the AMAS model using a novel real-world dataset of young job seekers from Vienna, which allows us to provide the first empirical evaluation of the AMAS model with a focus on fairness measures. We further apply bias mitigation strategies to study their effectiveness in our real-world setting. Our findings indicate that the prediction performance of the AMAS model is insufficient for use in practice, as more than 30% of job seekers would be misclassified in our use case. Further, our results confirm that the original model is biased with respect to gender as it tends to (incorrectly) assign women to the group with high chances of re-employment, which is not prioritized in the PES’ allocation of support measures. However, most bias mitigation strategies were able to improve fairness without compromising performance and thus may form an important building block in revising profiling schemes in the present context

The forces behind social unrest: Evidence from the Covid-19 pandemic

The unprecedented consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic have raised concerns about the erosion of social cohesion and intensified social unrest, but evidence for such a link and the underlying channels is still lacking. We use a unique combination of nationally representative survey data, event data on social unrest, and data on Covid-19 fatalities and unemployment at a weekly resolution to investigate the forces behind social cohesion and unrest in the context of the strains on public health and the economy due to the pandemic in the USA. The results show that pandemic-related unemployment and Covid-19 fatalities intensified negative emotional stress and led to a deterioration of economic confidence among individuals. The prevalence of negative emotional stress, particularly in economically strained and politically polarized environments, was, in turn, associated with intensified social unrest as measured by political protests. No such link is found for economic perceptions

Dealing with radiation risks in systemic cancer treatment: Perspectives of practitioners and patients in French hospitals

Systemic radionuclide therapy (SRT) using substances such as 177Lu is an approach in cancer treatment that aims to destroy malign tissues by injecting radionuclides directly into patients’ bodies via the bloodstream. This treatment connects benefits of care with risks related to radioactivity. Our research conducted in French hospitals shows that managing risk is an integral part of SRT, spanning from implementation, hospitals’ protocols, specific management, hospital settings, and training, to the individual experiences of health professionals and patients who are both exposed to radioactivity. This article argues that understanding how risks are managed in SRT not only requires making them identifiable, quantifiable, and calculable through medical devices in the context of evidence-based medicine, but also necessitates fostering trust throughout the treatment. This article explores and provides insights into three intertwined dimensions of trust in risk management: epistemic, (inter)-organizational, and interpersonal

Inflation forecasting in turbulent times

In the recent years many countries were hit by a series of macroeconomic shocks, most notably as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s invasion in Ukraine, raising inflation rates to multi-decade highs and suspending well-documented macroeconomic relationships. To capture these tail events, we propose a mixed-frequency Bayesian vector autoregressive (BVAR) model with Student t-distributed innovations or with stochastic volatility. Whereas inflation, industrial production, as well as oil and gas prices are available at monthly frequencies, real gross domestic product (GDP) is observed at a quarterly frequency. Thus, we apply a mixed-frequency setup using the forward-filtering–backward-sampling algorithm to generate monthly real GDP growth rates. We forecast inflation in those euro area countries that extensively import energy from Russia and therefore have been heavily exposed to the recent oil and gas price shocks. To measure the forecast performance of the mixed-frequency BVAR model, we compare our inflation forecasts with those generated by a battery of competing inflation forecasting models. The proposed BVAR models dominate the competition for all countries in terms of the log predictive density score

European countries policy responses against SARS-Cov-2 in the context of vaccinations

Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) are essential tools for containing or mitigating the spread of a novel virus until vaccination becomes available. Given their well-known side effects, NPIs should be employed only as long as necessary and largely replaced by population immunity through vaccination. During the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, countries adopted various strategies for implementing NPIs and administering vaccinations. While differences in NPIs and vaccination strategies among countries have been descriptively illustrated, they have not yet been quantified. This study aims to quantitatively analyze the differences in NPIs across 10 European countries immediately after vaccinations became available

Automobility violence: the case for adopting tobacco public health policies

Although tobacco use and road fatalities were recognized as public health issues at roughly the same time, the public health responses have been very different. The accepted wisdom in public health policy is that access to tobacco should be limited, highly taxed, advertising prohibited, visual and textual warnings be mandatory on tobacco products, the obfuscation and lobbying efforts of the tobacco industry publicized. In this paper, we make the case for adopting similar strategies in relation to automobility. As opposed to framing automobility violence as a remediable road safety issue, this paper makes the case for treating automobility violence as an irremediable public health problem. The public health goal with respect to tobacco is not simply to reduce death and disease but to eradicate tobacco use. The public health goal in respect to automobility should be the same. This requires pursuing public health politics oriented towards the dismantling of automobility