Felix Elwert, PhD, Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, will deliver the first LCDS seminar of Michaelmas Term on Wednesday, 8 October, 2:00–3:30 pm, in the Butler Room at Nuffield College, University of Oxford.
He will speak on the topic: Nonparametric Causal Decomposition of Group Differences: New Mechanisms & New Methods
Abstract
Researchers have long asked how intervening variables contribute to observed group-based outcome disparities. Examples include the role of education in shaping gender wage gaps, racial health disparities, and intergenerational income mobility. In this seminar, Professor Elwert will present a new nonparametric decomposition framework that establishes this enterprise on a firm causal footing through three contributions:
- the identification of a previously overlooked disparity-generating mechanism;
- the isolation of three distinct mechanisms under unstructured effect heterogeneity;
- the development of multiply robust, semiparametrically efficient double/debiased machine learning estimators with advantageous statistical properties.
Empirical analyses demonstrate that college graduation exerts multiple, and at times countervailing, causal influences on intergenerational income mobility, including through a newly identified generative mechanism. This research is joint work with Ang Yu.
About the Speaker
Felix Elwert is a scholar of social inequality, social demography, and applied statistics. He develops methods of causal inference and conducts research on the contextual drivers of inequality, income, education, and health. Collaborating with teams worldwide, he applies causal methods to large-scale randomised experiments, population registers, and surveys.
The recipient of multiple awards from the American Sociological Association and the American Statistical Association, his work has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Annual Review of Sociology, Sociological Science, Demography, JAMA, and other high-impact journals.
Professor Elwert received his PhD in sociology and statistics from Harvard University in 2007. He has taught applied causal inference at Berkeley, Princeton, Columbia, and in Berlin, Budapest, and Copenhagen, among other locations. From 2014 to 2016, he served as Karl W. Deutsch Professor and Acting Director of Social Inequality and Social Policy at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. He is currently Professor of Sociology and Biostatistics at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Editor-in-Chief of Sociological Methods & Research.