Joe Price: Machine Learning and Studying Prejudice

Joseph Price is a Professor of Economics at Brigham Young University, a Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Labor Economics, a Research Fellow at the Sutherland Institute, a Senior Fellow at the Austin Institute, a Fellow at the Wheatley Institution, a Co-Editor of the Economics of Education Review, and the Director of the BYU Record Linking Lab. Dr. Price loves mentored research with students and has over 40 undergraduate research assistants. Dr. Price has published over 50 articles including articles in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of Health Economics, Demography, and Management Science. He received a B.A in Economics from Brigham Young University and a Ph.D. in Economics from Cornell University.

New tools in machine learning make it possible to link individuals across multiple records to create large datasets of the entire US population. Professor Joe Price will describe some of these exciting tools in machine learning and how they open up the ability to answer important economic questions using historical data. He will provide several examples including some recent work on the long-run impact of prejudice using an exogenous shock to prejudice against German Americans that occurred World War I.