Papers by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz
Alberto Alesina was my first advisor and guided me throughout my PhD program. He was instrumental... more Alberto Alesina was my first advisor and guided me throughout my PhD program. He was instrumental in my choosing research topics (racism and political economy). Alberto's world-class ability to understand people and how to talk to them is unheard of in a top economics program and is something that I have attempted, without much success, to emulate. David Cutler, despite being a health economist, agreed to help on all my projects. Although the subject matter was often not his main area of study, he had an uncanny ability to point me in the right direction-where to search for the perfect quote to start my job market paper, for example. Edward Glaeser is superhuman. He achieves mastery at anything he does, including writing papers, giving talks, and advising. Hearing Ed talk and explore ideas-about cities, politics, religion, media, and marriage-was one of the great thrills of graduate school.
Owning one’s home is widely viewed as an integral part of the American dream. Americans are taugh... more Owning one’s home is widely viewed as an integral part of the American dream. Americans are taught from an early age to aspire to homeownership, and several long-standing federal institutions and regulations support owner-occupied residential housing.The income tax deduction for mortgage interest payments is possibly the best-known federal housing policy and is deeply ingrained in the economic and social fabric of the country. Evidence suggests, however, that the mortgage interest deduction (MID) does little if anything to encourage homeownership. Instead, it serves mainly to raise the price of housing and land and to encouragepeople who do buy homes to borrow more and to buy larger homes than they otherwise would. Most tax return filers, especially those with low or moderate incomes, do not itemize their deductions and therefore are not in a position to take advantage of the deduction if they were to buy a home. As a result, the deduction not only drains significant revenues from t...
Foreword by Steven PinkerBlending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the inst... more Foreword by Steven PinkerBlending the informed analysis of The Signal and the Noise with the instructive iconoclasm of Think Like a Freak, a fascinating, illuminating, and witty look at what the vast amounts of information now instantly available to us reveals about ourselves and our worldprovided we ask the right questions. By the end of an average day in the early twenty-first century, human beings searching the internet will amass eight trillion gigabytes of data. This staggering amount of informationunprecedented in historycan tell us a great deal about who we arethe fears, desires, and behaviors that drive us, and the conscious and unconscious decisions we make. From the profound to the mundane, we can gain astonishing knowledge about the human psyche that less than twenty years ago, seemed unfathomable. Everybody Lies offers fascinating, surprising, and sometimes laugh-out-loud insights into everything from economics to ethics to sports to race to sex, gender and more, all dra...
Everybody lies : what the Internet can tell us about who we really are
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR '... more THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR A NEW STATESMAN BOOK OF THE YEAR 'This book is about a whole new way of studying the mind ... Endlessly fascinating' Steven Pinker 'A whirlwind tour of the modern human psyche' Economist Everybody lies, to friends, lovers, doctors, pollsters - and to themselves. In Internet searches, however, people confess the truth. Insightful, funny and always surprising, Everybody Lies explores how this huge collection of data, unprecedented in human history, could just be the most important ever collected. It offers astonishing insights into the human psyche, revealing the biases deeply embedded within us, the questions we're afraid to ask that might be essential to our well-being, and the information we can use to change our culture for the better.
Abstract: How can we know how much racial animus costs black candidates if few voters will admit ... more Abstract: How can we know how much racial animus costs black candidates if few voters will admit such socially unacceptable attitudes to surveys? I use a new, non-survey proxy for an area's racial animus: Google search queries that include racially charged language. I compare the proxy to an area's votes for Barack Obama, the 2008 black Democratic presidential candidate, controlling for its votes for John Kerry, the 2004 white Democratic presidential candidate.
Owning one's home is widely viewed as an integral part of the American dream. Americans are taugh... more Owning one's home is widely viewed as an integral part of the American dream. Americans are taught from an early age to aspire to homeownership, and several long-standing federal institutions and regulations support owner-occupied residential housing. The income tax deduction for mortgage interest payments is possibly the best-known federal housing policy and is deeply ingrained in the economic and social fabric of the country.
Abstract How can we know how much racial animus costs black candidates if few voters will admit s... more Abstract How can we know how much racial animus costs black candidates if few voters will admit such socially unacceptable attitudes to surveys? I use a new, non-survey proxy for an area's racial animus: Google search queries that include racially charged language. I compare the proxy to an area's votes for Barack Obama, the 2008 black Democratic presidential candidate, controlling for its votes for John Kerry, the 2004 white Democratic presidential candidate.
Abstract This paper argues that Google searches prior to an election can be used to predict turno... more Abstract This paper argues that Google searches prior to an election can be used to predict turnout in different parts of the United States. Change in October search volume for” vote/voting” over a four year period explains 20-40 percent of state-level change in turnout rates. The predictive power is little affected by changes in registration rates or early votes over the same period. This information might prove useful in predicting candidate performance beyond what is contained in polls.
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Papers by Seth Stephens-Davidowitz