563 research outputs found
A Short-term Intervention for Long-term Fairness in the Labor Market
The persistence of racial inequality in the U.S. labor market against a
general backdrop of formal equality of opportunity is a troubling phenomenon
that has significant ramifications on the design of hiring policies. In this
paper, we show that current group disparate outcomes may be immovable even when
hiring decisions are bound by an input-output notion of "individual fairness."
Instead, we construct a dynamic reputational model of the labor market that
illustrates the reinforcing nature of asymmetric outcomes resulting from
groups' divergent accesses to resources and as a result, investment choices. To
address these disparities, we adopt a dual labor market composed of a Temporary
Labor Market (TLM), in which firms' hiring strategies are constrained to ensure
statistical parity of workers granted entry into the pipeline, and a Permanent
Labor Market (PLM), in which firms hire top performers as desired. Individual
worker reputations produce externalities for their group; the corresponding
feedback loop raises the collective reputation of the initially disadvantaged
group via a TLM fairness intervention that need not be permanent. We show that
such a restriction on hiring practices induces an equilibrium that, under
particular market conditions, Pareto-dominates those arising from strategies
that statistically discriminate or employ a "group-blind" criterion. The
enduring nature of equilibria that are both inequitable and Pareto suboptimal
suggests that fairness interventions beyond procedural checks of hiring
decisions will be of critical importance in a world where machines play a
greater role in the employment process.Comment: 10 page
Informational Substitutes
We propose definitions of substitutes and complements for pieces of
information ("signals") in the context of a decision or optimization problem,
with game-theoretic and algorithmic applications. In a game-theoretic context,
substitutes capture diminishing marginal value of information to a rational
decision maker. We use the definitions to address the question of how and when
information is aggregated in prediction markets. Substitutes characterize
"best-possible" equilibria with immediate information aggregation, while
complements characterize "worst-possible", delayed aggregation. Game-theoretic
applications also include settings such as crowdsourcing contests and Q\&A
forums. In an algorithmic context, where substitutes capture diminishing
marginal improvement of information to an optimization problem, substitutes
imply efficient approximation algorithms for a very general class of (adaptive)
information acquisition problems.
In tandem with these broad applications, we examine the structure and design
of informational substitutes and complements. They have equivalent, intuitive
definitions from disparate perspectives: submodularity, geometry, and
information theory. We also consider the design of scoring rules or
optimization problems so as to encourage substitutability or complementarity,
with positive and negative results. Taken as a whole, the results give some
evidence that, in parallel with substitutable items, informational substitutes
play a natural conceptual and formal role in game theory and algorithms.Comment: Full version of FOCS 2016 paper. Single-column, 61 pages (48 main
text, 13 references and appendix
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An Optimization-Based Framework for Combinatorial Prediction Market Design
We build on ideas from convex optimization to create a general framework for the design of efficient prediction markets over very large outcome spaces.Engineering and Applied Science
The impact of digital payments on the velocity of money in the Chinese market
To study the impact of digital payments on the velocity of money circulation, this paper
selects the velocity of money circulation at the M2 level in the Chinese market from
FY2012 to 202112 quarters as the dependent variable, the size of digital payment
transactions as the independent variable, and gross national product, inflation rate and
opportunity cost of money as control variables. In terms of model selection, since the
inflation rate and opportunity cost of money are monthly data, while the transaction
size of digital payment and the circulation speed of money at the M2 level are quarterly
data, the MIDAS series model is chosen to compare with the traditional OLS model,
and it is found that MIDAS-PDL has the best fitting effect and prediction accuracy.
Through the empirical results of the MIDAS-PDL model, we find that for the Chinese
market, digital payments have a significant positive effect on the velocity of money
circulation, in addition, inflation has a significant positive effect on the velocity of
money circulation, while the opportunity cost of money has a significant negative effect
on the velocity of money circulation
The Possibility Of Applying YouTube To Motivate Learning Autonomy
The notion of collaborative learning and teaching inforeign language education has been popular for decades. This concept focuseson learners and encourages them to learn a language by experiential and sharedlearning. The learners are believed to learn best if they learn through theconscious or unconscious internalization of their own or observed experienceswhich build upon our past experiences or knowledge. There is an assumption thatthe learning that can result from the experience, if the activities aremanifested ‘properly’, is a commodity called ‘knowledge’. This tends to be theview of the training and development literature (Moon, 2001). Within thisconcept, the role of teachers as collaborators in the teaching and learningprocess represents a change to traditional educational patterns. Moreover,increasing numbers of instructors are realizing the importance of motivatinglearning autonomy among students in EFL (English as a Foreign Language)classrooms. In this paper, I will consider to what extent the concept of ateacher as a collaborator can be applied to the university EFL classes inTaiwan, and how to motivate EFL learners’ autonomy via YouTube. Attention is firstpaid to the theoretical grounding of the concept and the characteristics of ateacher as a collaborator. Following this, the English education contexts in Taiwanis highlighted in order to consider how far this concept can be achieved.Finally, conclusions will be drawn from this small-scale exploration
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