"Why Is There So Much Fraud in Academia?" Freakonomics interviews Max Bazerman and others

Below is the latest Freakonomics podcast (and transcript), on fraud in academia.  Those most in the headlines weren't available to be interviewed, but their coauthor (and my longtime HBS colleague) Max Bazerman gives his perspective.

Also interviewed are the Data Colada authors/data sleuths Leif Nelson,  Uri Simonsohn, and Joe Simmons (with some clues about the name of their blog), and Brian Nosek, who founded the prizewinning Center for Open Science (https://www.cos.io/ 

Here it is:

Why Is There So Much Fraud in Academia?  Some of the biggest names in behavioral science stand accused of faking their results. Freakonomics EPISODE 572.

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And here are two paragraphs from Max's HBS web page (linked above), suggesting more to come:

"I have been connected to one of the most salient episodes of data fabrication in the history of social science – involving the signing first effect alluded to above. I am working on understanding all known social science frauds in this millennium. Social science also struggles with a broader problem, namely the fact that many studies fail to replicate due to faulty research practices that have become common in social science. Most replication failures can be traced back to the original researchers twisting their data to conform to their predictions, rather than from outright fraud. Trying to produce “significant” results, they may run a study multiple times, in a variety of ways, then selectively report the tests that worked and fail to report those that didn’t. The result is the publication of conclusions that do not hold up as accurate. Both problems – outright data fabrication and this reporting bias that shapes results – need to be tackled, so all of us in academia can publish results that are replicable and can help create value in society.

         "The last dozen years have witnessed multiple efforts to reform social science research to make it more credible, reproducible, and trusted. I am writing a book on reforming social science, which will provide an account of recent data fabrications, and highlight strategies to move forward to create more credible and impactful scientific research."

Eric Budish on the economics of cryptocurrencies (video of his Harris Lecture at Harvard)

 If you haven't heard Eric Budish talk about crypto, this is your chance:  here's the video of his Harris Lecture at Harvard: The Economics of Cryptocurrencies by Eric Budish

(It was delivered before the recent collapse of the FTX exchange.)

Affirmative action at Harvard and elsewhere, by Roland Fryer

 As the Supreme Court starts to hear arguments about affirmative action in college admissions, at Harvard and the University of North Carolina, Roland Fryer, a Black professor of Economics at Harvard, shares some thoughts--including stories from his own experience--about how affirmative action might be reformed.

Affirmative action in college admissions doesn’t work — but it could, By Roland G. Fryer Jr.,  Washington Post.

"On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in an affirmative action case involving Harvard, where I am a professor. Many people who are concerned about racial representation at elite institutions fear that the justices will end the practice as we know it. But if they do, they could provide an opportunity to create a new, data-based system that would truly help level the playing field for disadvantaged kids.

"I was raised, in part, by my father, who was sentenced to eight years in prison when I was in my teens. 

...

"But for my college professors’ willingness to look beyond my past performance — but for affirmative action — I would not have benefited from twice-weekly 7 a.m. meetings with the economics professor who showed me how science could be used to help people. Or the statistics professor who marveled at my stories of my favorite uncle — a wino with sophisticated strategies of betting on Greyhound races — and helped me use formal models to explain his behavior. Or a spot at the American Economic Association’s summer school for minority students.

"But affirmative action is very often not targeted at individuals who, because of disadvantage, are achieving below their potential. Seventy-one percent of Harvard’s Black and Hispanic students come from wealthy backgrounds. A tiny fraction attended underperforming public high schools. First- and second-generation African immigrants, despite constituting only about 10 percent of the U.S. Black population, make up about 41 percent of all Black students in the Ivy League, and Black immigrants are wealthier and better educated than many native-born Black Americans.

...

"The Supreme Court seems poised to strike down the explicit use of race in university admissions. My hope is that it will still leave room for data-driven approaches to affirmative action that ensure real meritocracy."

Emmanuel Farhi 1978-2020

Emmanuel Farhi passed away last week, unexpectedly and tragically.  He was my colleague at Harvard, and we had recently sought to hire him at Stanford.  

Here's the Harvard Economics department memorial, which contains moving testimonials: 

In Memoriam: Emmanuel Farhi 1978-2020 

This has been a hard year at Harvard, with four deaths in the department in the last 12 months.

In Memoriam: Gary Chamberlain 1948-2020

In Memoriam: Alberto Alesina 1957-2020

In Memoriam: Martin L. Weitzman, 1942 - 2019

Harvard admissions on trial--dualing economist expert witnesses, interesting details

The Chronicle of Higher Ed has the story:
Dueling Economists: Rival Analyses of Harvard’s Admissions Process Emerge at Trial
There are many strands to this story (and it seems to be ungated), but here I'll just note a few interesting admissions stats.

"Of the 37,000 applicants for admission to the Class of 2019, for instance, 8,200 had perfect grade-point averages, and more than 2,700 had perfect scores on the verbal section of the SAT. But Harvard had only about 1,700 spots to offer. Even if the university wished to consider only grades and test scores, it would be hard-pressed to select a freshman class using those variables alone.
...
"The two economists’ analyses vary in several ways. Perhaps most significant, their respective models include different kinds of applicants. Arcidiacono excludes recruited athletes, the children of alumni, the children of Harvard faculty and staff members, and students on a special list that includes children of donors.

"Card includes them. Though the total number of students who fit those descriptions represents a small fraction of the applicant pool (5 percent), they account for a large proportion of accepted students (29 percent).

Market design class at Harvard taught by Scott Kominers

If you are a Harvard student, check out Scott Kominer's Fall market design class.
Here's the course outline.

Market Design

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Economics 2099 -- Harvard University -- Fall 2018 

Description:

This course explores the theory and practice of market design. Key topics include auctions, labor market matching, school choice programs, online markets, organ exchange systems, financial market design, and matching with contracts. The first half of the course will introduce market design and its technology; subsequent weeks will discuss recent papers alongside their classical antecedents.

Information on Logistics, Requirements, and Readings:

See the course syllabus (posted August 29, 2018).

Enrollment Application:

https://tinyurl.com/2099app/.

Assignment Deadlines:

A short proposal summary/plan will be due on October 17, 2018. The final proposal will be due on December 10, 2018 (the last day of Reading Period).

Schedule:

Date	Topic	Guest(s)
September 4, 2018	Introduction/Overview
September 11, 2018	The Market Designer's Toolbox
September 18, 2018	Food Supply, Scrip Systems, and Pseudo-Markets	Erica Moszkowski
September 25, 2018	School Choice
October 2, 2018	Generalized Matching	Ravi Jagadeesan
October 9, 2018	Markets for Intellectual Property
October 16, 2018	Auction Theory	Shengwu Li
October 23, 2018	The US Spectrum Incentive Auction
October 30, 2018	Organ Allocation
November 6, 2018	Finance, Cryptocurrency, and Blockchain
November 13, 2018	Inequality and Urban Issues	Edward L. Glaeser
November 20, 2018	New Horizons	Zoë Cullen, Andrey Fradkin David Parkes, Utku Ünver, Kate Vredenburgh
November 27, 2018	Refugees, Immigration, and Economic Development	Benjamin Roth
December 4, 2018	Student Talks/Course Wrap

Internal Harvard Website:

https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/43959/.

Office Hours Calendar:

https://2099-officehours.youcanbook.me/.

A look inside Harvard's admissions process

College admissions is a matching process--you can't just study at an elite university, even if you can afford the tuition--you first have to be admitted.

Harvard's admissions process is the subject of a lawsuit, and the discovery process is shedding some light on the deliberations that go on behind the closed doors of the admissions committee.  Here's an account from the NY Times:

‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions Secrets

Now you know some Harvard admissions jargon: "tips" are aspects of a candidates case that might tip him or her over the bar to admission. "Lops" are people tentatively admitted who get lopped off the admit list as it is trimmed to create a class that is balanced the way the admissions office wants.  And the "Z-List" consist of people admitted at the last minute, and required to defer admission for a year, who often have family connections to Harvard.

Unrecognized Single-Gender Social Organizations (USGSO) at Harvard

Harvard has taken steps to express its repugnance to single-gender social organizations. It is motivated primarily by repugnance to male-only groups, and seeks to recognize that some women-only groups were formed in response to discrimination. Here is their new policy, which is short of a ban on students who participate in such groups, but which imposes sanctions on such students. (The organizations themselves are typically privately owned and outside of Harvard's control).

Unrecognized Single-Gender Social Organization (USGSO) Policy

"Policy: Students matriculating in the fall of 2017 and thereafter who become members of Unrecognized Single-Gender Social Organizations (USGSO) will not be eligible to hold leadership positions in recognized student organizations or on athletic teams. In addition, such students will not be eligible for fellowships administered by the Office of Undergraduate Research and Fellowships. This policy does not apply to students who matriculated prior to fall 2017.
...
"Women’s Organizations: We are committed to treating all organizations that are moving towards gender-inclusivity fairly and to offering them Harvard College resources and assistance regardless of gender. As Dean Khurana noted in an open letter in May 2016, Harvard has a long and complex history of grappling with gender discrimination. The College is deeply committed to gender equity, inclusion, and non-discrimination and to advance women's full participation in Harvard's academic and extracurricular life. To that end, we welcome all organizations, and especially those whose membership is currently restricted to women, to partner with us.  We are excited to announce that Heidi Wickersham, Program Manager at the Harvard College Women’s Center, and staff members in the Office of Student Life will jointly partner with groups wishing to transition from having a women’s exclusive membership while maintaining a women’s-focused mission."

Scott Kominers had a big market design class at Harvard this year

Scott may eventually educate a high percentage of market designers: here's a picture of his class this year.

Airbnb consider market design changes to reduce discrimination

The NY Times has the story:
Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts

"Airbnb, based in San Francisco, said that it would institute a new nondiscrimination policy that goes beyond what is outlined in several anti-discrimination laws and that it would ask all users to agree to a “community commitment” starting on Nov. 1. The commitment asks people to work with others who use the service, “regardless of race, religion, national origin, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation or age.”

In addition, the company plans to experiment with reducing the prominence of user photos, which have helped signal race and gender. Airbnb said it would also accelerate the use of instant bookings, which lets renters book places immediately without host approval."
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There is a strong market design subtext to this story: Peter Coles, Airbnb's (new) chief economist, used to work at Harvard Business School, where some of his former colleagues conducted an experiment that helped focus on the possible discrimination problem.
Here's the current version of that paper:

Racial Discrimination in the Sharing Economy:Evidence from a Field Experiment
 Benjamin Edelman, Michael Luca, and Dan Svirsky
 September 4, 2016

 Abstract
Online marketplaces increasingly choose to reduce the anonymity of buyers and sellers in order to facilitate trust. We demonstrate that this common market design choice results in an important unintended consequence: racial discrimination. In a field experiment on Airbnb, we find that requests from guests with distinctively African-American names are roughly 16% less likely to be accepted than identical guests with distinctively White names. The difference persists whether the host is African-American or White, male or female. The difference also persists whether the host shares the property with the guest or not, and whether the property is cheap or expensive. We validate our findings through observational data on hosts’ recent experiences with African-American guests, finding host behavior consistent with some, though not all, hosts discriminating. Finally, we find that discrimination is costly for hosts who indulge in it: hosts who reject  guests are able to find a replacement guest only 35% of the time. On the whole, our analysis suggests a need for caution: while information can facilitate transactions, it also facilitates discrimination.

Harvard and Stanford compared and contrasted, in French: la guerre de l’excellence

Les Echos has the story: Harvard-Stanford, la guerre de l’excellence, by
Lucie Robequain

Ms. Robequain spent some time on both campuses, and so her article is full of quotes from people you may know, about universities and university design...

The photo gallery of retired Harvard economics professors on the Littauer stairway

Among the many reasons that the Harvard Economics department needs a new or renovated building is that their photo gallery of retired faculty is nearing the top of the stairwell. I haven't seen my photo there in person yet, but several correspondents have sent me a picture of my picture, and this photo captures, in reflection, how little room is left on the stairs...

University governance, at Harvard

In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Charles Fried and Bob Mnookin write about the increased centralization of governance at Harvard: The Silencing of Harvard’s Professors.

They make many points, here are two:
"Today’s official mantra is One Harvard. In the last 20 years there has been a vast expansion of the central administration and an increasing degree of centralization. This is hardly a trend specific to our campus. Colleges and universities across the country both public and private are grappling with this same issue. Today at Harvard, not only is there a provost, who is the university’s “chief academic officer,” there are also a deputy provost, a senior vice provost for faculty development and diversity, three vice provosts (for research, for advances in learning, and for international affairs), a senior associate provost who is the chief technology officer, and four associate provosts for institutional research, for science, for social sciences and the professions, and for arts and culture, as well as assistant provosts — all with staffs. In addition there is a cadre of high-level administrators such as an executive vice president and senior nonacademic officials with central administrative responsibilities.
...

"On everybody’s return from summer vacation we were met with a ukase imposing a single set of sexual-harassment policies and procedures, and a new central bureaucracy combining under one head compliance, enforcement, investigating, and adjudicating functions for the whole university. These policies and procedures were arrived at by a working group of administrators (some of whom were drawn from the administrative staffs of the schools) and then adopted by the president and fellows. There were no law faculty members involved. When our law faculty had a good look at these procedures at a meeting with the general counsel we made it plain that we considered the procedures inconsistent with due process and if radical changes were not made it was probable that a large majority of Harvard’s law faculty would publicly denounce them. In response the university authorized the law dean to appoint a faculty redrafting committee and now there are for the law school alone disciplinary procedures worthier of a leading law faculty. Those alternative procedures were overwhelmingly approved by vote of the law faculty."

Getting into Harvard the hard way, by transferring

College admissions consists of lots of parts: early, regular, waiting lists, z-lists, transfers... It doesn't appear that transfers are a big part of Harvard's admissions strategy.

The Real 1%: Harvard Admits 15 Transfer Students...from a pool of 1,448 applicants.


"Mascolo said that the College, still within memory of its two-year moratorium on all transfer admissions, will probably accept a similarly tiny number of transfer students again next year."

Harvard after the return of early admissions

Harvard Yield for Class of 2016 Soars to 81%

"In the first year of Harvard’s renewed early admissions program, the yield for the class of 2016 soared to nearly 81 percent, a significant increase from last year’s rate of 77 percent, the University announced on Thursday.

...

In December, Harvard admitted 772 students under its early action program. Another 1,260 acceptances were extended in March. Overall, 1,641 of those admitted to the Class of 2016 accepted their offer of admission from Harvard.

Due to this high yield a very small number of students will be taken off the waitlist, approximately 25, Fitzsimmons said. The admissions office began reviewing waitlisted applications on Thursday, he added.

************

Congratulations to the class of 2016, and congratulations to the class of 2012, who graduate today.

Harvard admissions

Some statistics: Harvard Accepts Record Low of 5.9 Percent to the Class of 2016

"In total, including the 772 students admitted in December in the early action acceptance round, a total of 2,032 initial offers, more than 100 fewer than last year, were extended to applicants. The admit rate for those considered under regular decision, including the 2,838 early action candidates who were deferred to the original round, was 3.8 percent.
...
"Fitzsimmons said in a press release that the return of early action admissions, discontinued at Harvard in 2006 and revived for the Class of 2016, made it more difficult for the admissions office to predict the number of students who will ultimately matriculate. Thus, officers were conservative in the number of students they accepted.
...
"Harvard placed an unspecified number of students on the waitlist, and these students will receive notice of their status later in the spring. Fitzsimmons said that the office expects to admit more waitlisted students than usual this time around, since it was cautious in its initial offers."

A marketplace for Harvard babysitters

If you work at Harvard, you might be able to hire a Harvard student as a babysitter. Here's the announcement:

Dear Colleague,

I am writing to let you know about an exciting new service available exclusively to the Harvard community: It’s a Harvard PIN-protected babysitting website, called Web Access to Care at Harvard, or the WATCH portal.  Please visit the site at [xxx]

The WATCH portal links Harvard parents – faculty, staff and students – to Harvard students, both undergraduate and graduate, who want to babysit. In addition, Harvard employees are able to sponsor high school and college students who are members of their families to be babysitters.

If you are a parent and think you might need child care in the future, please register with the site and feel free to browse caregiver profiles. If you are actively looking for child care right now, please go ahead and post a job! And if you have high school or college age children interested in babysitting, register them as well.

We’re very excited about this new service and the opportunities it brings to maximize connections within the Harvard community.  

Harvard celebrates first kidney transplant

In connection with Harvard's 375th anniversary, the Gazette is taking note of some key events:  A transplant makes history--Joseph Murray’s 1954 kidney operation ushered in a new medical era

"“If you’re going to worry about what people say, you’re never going to make any progress,” Murray said during a recent interview at his home in Wellesley Hills, Mass."
...
"After the operation, Murray’s work on transplantation continued. Despite his success with the Herricks, the problem of rejection generally still presented a high hurdle.
In the years that followed, Murray used first X-rays and then drugs to suppress the immune system and keep the body from rejecting the grafted tissue, but there were few successes. Through those dark years, he and his colleagues pressed on, inspired by the dying patients who volunteered for surgery in hopes that, even if they didn’t make it, enough could be learned that success would come one day.
“We were trying. In spite of several failures, we felt we were getting close,” Murray said. “It’s difficult to translate the optimism of the Brigham staff and hospital. The administration really backed us.”
Finally, in 1962, in collaboration with scientists from the drug company Burroughs-Wellcome, Murray tried a drug, Imuran, on 23-year-old Mel Doucette, who had received a kidney from an unrelated cadaver donor. The success of that operation and the anti-rejection drug cleared the final hurdle to widespread organ transplantation between unrelated donors, and set the stage for the many refinements and breakthroughs by others in the years to come."

Instructions are part of a market's design

Whenever my colleagues and I help design a new marketplace, we're very aware that a part of the market mechanism are the instructions that accompany it. There's no reason to assume that the benefits of a strategy-proof mechanism, for example, will be realized if the participants aren't made fully aware that it is strategy-proof, so that it is safe for them to reveal their true preferences.

That is why I was glad when the HBS MBA program invited me to explain the modified serial dictatorship mechanism that Clayton Featherstone and I designed for the first year of operation of a 2nd year MBA field experience module, in which Harvard MBA students will choose countries in which to spend time at a company.  (We felt it was particularly important to start with a strategy-proof mechanism, for reasons we hope to write about in the not too distant future.)  Here's the video of my explanation (which can also be found at http://video.hbs.edu/videotools/play?clip=aroth_field2_algorithm or, if that is gated, http://stream.hbs.edu/remediated/cd/aroth_field2_algorithm.mp4)

While I think of it, let me mention that Clayton is an unusually talented and versatile market designer, theorist and experimenter who will be on the econ job market this year.

Hockey: the NHL draft is different

Yesterday's post, with an update at the bottom...

Four Harvard Freshmen Selected in NHL Draft

"Months before they’ll put on a Harvard uniform for the first time, four incoming Crimson freshmen were chosen in Saturday’s National Hockey League draft.

With these four additions, there will be eight NHL draftees on Harvard’s roster going into the 2011-12 season.

"The structure of the NHL draft differs from that of the other three major American sports. Unlike in MLB, the NBA, and the NFL, players selected by NHL teams can continue to compete on the amateur level while remaining the protected picks of the team that originally selected them.

Baseball, football, and basketball prospects are forced to choose between signing a professional contract or retaining amateur status and NCAA eligibility shortly after the draft."
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Can someone fill us in  on why the NHL works this way? i.e. why do pro hockey draftees include students who are about to go to college?
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Update (Friday, July 29):

Jaron Cordero writes with some relevant detail:

"NFL draft: to be eligible players must be out of high school for at least three years.

NBA draft: you have to be 19 years old to be eligible.

--So a student can't enter either draft before entering college.

NHL and MLB: you can be "drafted" and still retain NCAA eligibility. In fact, there are plenty cases each year where a player fresh out of high school will get drafted by a major league baseball franchise, but instead choose to play college baseball.

The difference between the NHL and MLB is their respective collective bargaining agreements:

The MLB's requires a team to sign their drafted player in order to retain exclusive right of negotiation for his services. NCAA legislation states that an athlete's amateur status is forfeited if he/she signs a contract with a professional team.

On the other hand, the NHL's CBA allows teams to retain the exclusive right of negotiation of a drafted player until the summer after the athlete graduates from college. Thus, the athlete is not forced to sign any contract with a professional team; therefore he keeps his status as an amateur."

Thanks, Jaron.

So...now I'm puzzling over a new set of questions, e.g. why are the agreements so different? E.g. in MLB, they seem to think that playing in the minors is the way they want to develop players, in contrast to football, where players often develop in college. (Maybe because for football you have to see how big they are going to be when full grown?)  Is hockey somewhere in between?