Charles F Manski
Biographic Data
| ID | 368332 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Charles F Manski |
| GIVEN NAMES | Charles F |
| FAMILY NAME | Manski |
| SIGNATURE | MANSKI C F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Northwestern University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7260-7686 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 46 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 404 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 45 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1977 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
A decision theoretic perspective on artificial superintelligence: Coping with missing data problems in prediction and treatment choice
Using ordinal voting to compare the utilitarian welfare of a status quo and a proposed policy: A simple nonparametric analysis
Prediction with Differential Covariate Classification: Illustrated by Covariate Classification in Medical Risk Assessment
A common practice in evidence-based decision-making uses estimates of conditional probabilities P(y|x) obtained from research studies to predict outcomes y based on observed covariates x. Given this information, decisions are then based on the predicted outcomes. Researchers commonly assume that the predictors used in the generation of the evidence are the same as those used in applying the evidence: i.e., the meaning of x in the two circumstance…
Inference with Imputed Data: The Allure of Making Stuff Up
Incomplete observability of data generates an identification problem. What one can learn about a population parameter depends on the assumptions one finds credible. Rubin has promoted random multiple imputation (RMI) as a general way to deal with missing values. The recommendation has been influential to researchers who seek a simple fix to the nuisance of missing data. This paper provides a transparent assessment of the mix of Bayesian and frequ…
Minimax-regret climate policy with deep uncertainty in climate modeling and intergenerational discounting
Integrated assessment models have become the primary tools for comparing climate policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Such policies have often been identified by considering a planner who seeks to make optimal trade-offs between the costs of carbon abatement and the economic damages from climate change. The planning problem has been formalized as one of optimal control, the objective being to minimize the total costs of abatement …
Judicial and Clinical Decision-Making under Uncertainty
Norms for judicial and clinical decisions under uncertainty differ. When clinicians are uncertain about patient health, they view the patient as a member of a population with similar attributes and make care decisions using available knowledge about the distribution of health in this population. In contrast, legal systems typically do not permit a defendant to be convicted of a crime based on a justification that persons with similar attributes o…
Forming Covid-19 Policy Under Uncertainty
This paper presents my thinking and concerns about formation of COVID-19 policy. Policy formation must cope with substantial uncertainties about the nature of the disease, the dynamics of transmission, and behavioral responses. Data uncertainties limit our knowledge of the past trajectory and current state of the pandemic. Data and modeling uncertainties limit our ability to predict the impacts of alternative policies. I explain why current epide…
Identification of Anonymous Endogenous Interactions
Endogenous growth models assume dynamic learning processes in which the output of a given firm depends on the lagged value of aggregate industry output. Biological models of contagion suppose that the probability of an uninfected person becoming infected varies with the fraction of the population already infected. This chapter utilizes the term anonymous endogenous interactions to describe the class of social processes in which the behavior of an…
How Do Right-to-Carry Laws Affect Crime Rates? Coping with Ambiguity Using Bounded-Variation Assumptions
Despite dozens of studies, research on crime has struggled to reach consensus about the impact of right-to-carry (RTC) gun laws. With this in mind, we formalize and apply a class of bounded-variation assumptions that flexibly restrict the degree to which outcomes may vary across time and space. Using these assumptions, we present empirical analysis of the effect of RTC laws on violent and property crimes in Virginia, Maryland, and Illinois. Impos…
Questionnaires: Collection of Subjective Expectations Data
Narrow or Broad Cost–Benefit Analysis
Using elicited choice probabilities in hypothetical elections to study decisions to vote
Choosing Size of Government Under Ambiguity: Infrastructure Spending and Income Taxation
I examine choice of size of government by a planner who has partial knowledge of population preferences and the productivity of public spending. Focusing on income tax‐financed spending for infrastructure, I examine scenarios where the planner observes the outcome of a status quo policy and uses various decision criteria to choose policy. The analysis shows that the planner can reasonably choose a wide range of spending levels – thus, a society c…
Status Quo Deference and Policy Choice under Ambiguity
Institutions for collective decision making often defer to the status quo, granting it a privileged position relative to proposed policy innovations. The possible benefits of status quo deference must be weighed against a cost: status quo deference can prevent a society from learning the merits of innovations. This paper explores the potential for learning through adaptive diversification of treatment choice in decision systems that feature statu…
Response to the Review of ‘Public Policy in an Uncertain World’
I am grateful to the Economic Journal for the opportunity to respond to the comments of Guido Imbens on my recent book (Manski, 2013). Imbens characterises the book as an introduction to my work on partial identification. He evidently views this work as sufficiently familiar to the readership of the Economic Journal as not to require a definition of the term partial identification or references to the literature. However, he also writes that the …
Policy Analysis with Incredible Certitude
Analyses of public policy regularly express certitude about the consequences of alternative policy choices. Yet policy predictions often are fragile, with conclusions resting on critical unsupported assumptions or leaps of logic. Then the certitude of policy analysis is not credible. I develop a typology of incredible analytical practices and give illustrative cases. I call these practices conventional certitude, duelling certitudes, conflating s…
Genes, Eyeglasses, and Social Policy
Someone reading empirical research relating human genetics to personal outcomes must be careful to distinguish two types of work: An old literature on heritability attempts to decompose cross-sectional variation in observed outcomes into unobservable genetic and environmental components. A new literature measures specific genes and uses them as observed covariates when predicting outcomes. I will discuss these two types of work in terms of how th…
Rounding Probabilistic Expectations in Surveys
Rounding is the familiar practice of reporting one value whenever a real number lies in an interval. Uncertainty about the extent of rounding is common when researchers analyze survey responses to numerical questions. The prevalent practice has been to take numerical responses at face value, even though many may in fact be rounded. This paper studies the rounding of responses to survey questions that ask persons to state the percent-chance that s…
Probabilistic Polling And Voting In The 2008 Presidential Election
This article reports new empirical evidence on probabilistic polling, which asks persons to state in percent-chance terms the likelihood that they will vote and for whom. Before the 2008 presidential election, seven waves of probabilistic questions were administered biweekly to participants in the American Life Panel (ALP). Actual voting behavior was reported after the election. We find that responses to the verbal and probabilistic questions are…
Social Planning with Partial Knowledge of Social Interactions
Economists studying collective decision problems often consider how a social planner would behave. The standard exercise presumes complete knowledge of the welfare achieved by each feasible policy. However, we often have only partial knowledge of policy impacts. This paper extends my program of research on planning under ambiguity from settings with individualistic treatment to ones where treatments interact, each person's outcome depending on hi…
Comparing the Point Predictions and Subjective Probability Distributions of Professional Forecasters
We use data from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) to compare point predictions of gross domestic product (GDP) growth and inflation with the subjective probability distributions held by forecasters. We find that most SPF point predictions are quite close to the central tendencies of forecasters subjective distributions tend to be asymmetric, with SPF forecasters tending to report point predictions that give a more favorable view of th…
Profiling: Introduction to the Feature
Journal Article Profiling: Introduction to the Feature Get access Charles F. Manski Charles F. Manski Northwestern University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 116, Issue 515, November 2006, Pages F347–F350, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2006.01125.x Published: 21 November 2006
Search Profiling with Partial Knowledge of Deterrence
Consider the choice of a profiling policy where decisions to search for evidence of crime may vary with observable covariates of the persons at risk of search. I pose a planning problem whose objective is to minimise the social cost of crime and search. The consequences of a search rule depend on the extent to which search deters crime. I study the planning problem when the planner has partial knowledge of deterrence. I show how the planner can e…
Measuring Expectations
This article discusses the history underlying the new literature, describes some of what has been learned thus far, and looks ahead towards making further progress
Confidence Intervals for Partially Identified Parameters
this paper, we study the use of these intervals as CIs for the partially identified parameter f(P,#). Our most basic finding is Lemma 2.1: Lemma 2.1 Let CN0 0, CN1 0, # #, and P #P
Economic Analysis of Social Interactions
Economics is broadening its scope from analysis of markets to study of general social interactions. Developments in game theory, the economics of the family, and endogenous growth theory have led the way. Economists have also performed new empirical research using observational data on social interactions, but with much less to show. The fundamental problem is that observable outcomes may be generated by many different interaction processes, so e…
Perceptions of Economic Insecurity: Evidence From the Survey of Economic Expectations
Journal Article Perceptions of Economic Insecurity: Evidence from the Survey of Economic Expectations Get access JEFF DOMINITZ, JEFF DOMINITZ Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar CHARLES F. MANSKI CHARLES F. MANSKI Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 61, Issue 2, August 1997, Pages 261–287, https://doi.org/10.1086/297795 Published: 01 August …
Teen Expectations for Significant Life Events
Journal Article Teen Expectations for Significant Life Events Get access BARUCH FISCHHOFF, BARUCH FISCHHOFF Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar ANDREW M. PARKER, ANDREW M. PARKER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar WÄNDI BRUINE DE BRUIN, WÄNDI BRUINE DE BRUIN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar JULIE DOWNS, JULIE DOWNS Search for other w…
Bounding Disagreements about Treatment Effects: A Case Study of Sentencing and Recidivism
Empirical inference on treatment effects is a core objective of social science research. The conventional practice is to obtain point estimates of treatment effects using models that make strong and thereby controversial assumptions about treatment selection and outcomes. In this paper we obtain bounds under weak nonparametric assumptions and explore how the bounds vary with the assumptions imposed. This mode of analysis clarifies the source of c…
Policy Analysis with Incredible Certitude
Analyses of public policy regularly express certitude about the consequences of alternative policy choices. Yet policy predictions often are fragile, with conclusions resting on critical unsupported assumptions or leaps of logic. Then the certitude of policy analysis is not credible. I develop a typology of incredible analytical practices and give illustrative cases. I call these practices conventional certitude, duelling certitudes, conflating s…
Probabilistic Polling And Voting In The 2008 Presidential Election
This article reports new empirical evidence on probabilistic polling, which asks persons to state in percent-chance terms the likelihood that they will vote and for whom. Before the 2008 presidential election, seven waves of probabilistic questions were administered biweekly to participants in the American Life Panel (ALP). Actual voting behavior was reported after the election. We find that responses to the verbal and probabilistic questions are…
Search Profiling with Partial Knowledge of Deterrence
Consider the choice of a profiling policy where decisions to search for evidence of crime may vary with observable covariates of the persons at risk of search. I pose a planning problem whose objective is to minimise the social cost of crime and search. The consequences of a search rule depend on the extent to which search deters crime. I study the planning problem when the planner has partial knowledge of deterrence. I show how the planner can e…
Identification Problems in the Social Sciences
Methodological research in the social sciences aims to learn what conclusions can and cannot be drawn given empirically relevant combinations of assumptions and data. Methodologists have long found it useful to separate inferential problems into statistical and identification components. Studies of identification seek to characterize the conclusions that could be drawn if the researcher had available a sample of unlimited size. Studies of statist…
Genes, Eyeglasses, and Social Policy
Someone reading empirical research relating human genetics to personal outcomes must be careful to distinguish two types of work: An old literature on heritability attempts to decompose cross-sectional variation in observed outcomes into unobservable genetic and environmental components. A new literature measures specific genes and uses them as observed covariates when predicting outcomes. I will discuss these two types of work in terms of how th…
How Should We Measure Consumer Confidence
Research on consumer confidence has mainly sought to evaluate the power of available data to predict economic outcomes. In contrast, this article considers how best to measure consumer confidence. We analyze the responses to eight questions that have appeared recently on the Michigan Survey of Consumers; four elicit expectations in the traditional qualitative manner and four use a newer "percent chance" format. Examination of the responses sugges…
The Logit Model and Response-Based Samples
It is well-known that, under the logit model for binary response, the random sampling and response-based sampling maximum likelihood estimators coincide for all parameters except the intercept. Citing this coincidence, many researchers have assumed the logit model and analyzed data from response-based samples as if those data were obtained by random sampling. We argue that this practice should be avoided unless the researcher really believes the …
Evaluating welfare and training programs
Choosing Size of Government Under Ambiguity: Infrastructure Spending and Income Taxation
I examine choice of size of government by a planner who has partial knowledge of population preferences and the productivity of public spending. Focusing on income tax‐financed spending for infrastructure, I examine scenarios where the planner observes the outcome of a status quo policy and uses various decision criteria to choose policy. The analysis shows that the planner can reasonably choose a wide range of spending levels – thus, a society c…
Credible Research Practices to Inform Drug Law Enforcement
Chairing the recent National Research Council Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs, I learned that our nation has invested little in research on drug law enforcement and that the limited available research does not provide a credible basis for formation of drug control policy. This commentary conjectures reasons for the distressing status quo and recommends changes in research practices that may improve matters
Narrow or Broad Cost–Benefit Analysis
College Choice in America
Structural Models for Discrete Data: The Analysis of Discrete Choice
The Prologue to the 1979 volume of Sociological Methodology noted both the recent preoccupation of sociologists with categorical data and their growing interest in structural equation theory. Ironically the various chapters in the volume indicate that these two important trends are progressing largely in mutual isolation.' On the one hand, the structural equation models that have received attention to date presume continuous endogenous variables.…
Minimax-regret climate policy with deep uncertainty in climate modeling and intergenerational discounting
Integrated assessment models have become the primary tools for comparing climate policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Such policies have often been identified by considering a planner who seeks to make optimal trade-offs between the costs of carbon abatement and the economic damages from climate change. The planning problem has been formalized as one of optimal control, the objective being to minimize the total costs of abatement …
Forming Covid-19 Policy Under Uncertainty
This paper presents my thinking and concerns about formation of COVID-19 policy. Policy formation must cope with substantial uncertainties about the nature of the disease, the dynamics of transmission, and behavioral responses. Data uncertainties limit our knowledge of the past trajectory and current state of the pandemic. Data and modeling uncertainties limit our ability to predict the impacts of alternative policies. I explain why current epide…
Using elicited choice probabilities in hypothetical elections to study decisions to vote
Response to the Review of ‘Public Policy in an Uncertain World’
I am grateful to the Economic Journal for the opportunity to respond to the comments of Guido Imbens on my recent book (Manski, 2013). Imbens characterises the book as an introduction to my work on partial identification. He evidently views this work as sufficiently familiar to the readership of the Economic Journal as not to require a definition of the term partial identification or references to the literature. However, he also writes that the …
A Behavioral Approach to Modelling Household Motor Vehicle Ownership and Applications to Aggregate Policy Analysis
A unified approach to the modelling of household motor vehicle ownership level, consumption of vehicle holdings, and vehicle use is described. The model system is founded on a utility theory of household behavior, and is implemented through probabilistic discrete choice models estimated from cross-sectional samples of households. Following the introduction of the model, an application involving forecasts of US motor vehicle sales through the mid-…
The structure of random utility models
The Estimation of Choice Probabilities from Choice Based Samples
Ti-H CONCERN of this paper is the estimation of the parameters of a probabilistic choice model when choices rather than decision makers are sampled. Existing estimation methods presuppose an exogeneous sampling process, that is one in which a sequence of decision makers are drawn and their choice behaviors observed. In contrast, in choice based sampling processes, a sequence of chosen alternatives are drawn and the characteristics of the decision…
Structural Models for Discrete Data: The Analysis of Discrete Choice
The Prologue to the 1979 volume of Sociological Methodology noted both the recent preoccupation of sociologists with categorical data and their growing interest in structural equation theory. Ironically the various chapters in the volume indicate that these two important trends are progressing largely in mutual isolation.' On the one hand, the structural equation models that have received attention to date presume continuous endogenous variables.…
A Behavioral Approach to Modelling Household Motor Vehicle Ownership and Applications to Aggregate Policy Analysis
A unified approach to the modelling of household motor vehicle ownership level, consumption of vehicle holdings, and vehicle use is described. The model system is founded on a utility theory of household behavior, and is implemented through probabilistic discrete choice models estimated from cross-sectional samples of households. Following the introduction of the model, an application involving forecasts of US motor vehicle sales through the mid-…
College Choice in America
The most crucial choice a high school graduate makes is whether to attend college or to go to work. Here is the most sophisticated study of the complexities behind that decision. Based on a unique data set of nearly 23,000 seniors from more than 1,300 high schools who were tracked over several years, the book treats the following questions in detail: Who goes to college? Does low family income prevent some young people from enrolling, or does sch…
College Choice in America
Anatomy of the Selection Problem
This article considers anew the problem of estimating a regression E(y|x) when realizations of (y, x) are sampled randomly but y is observed selectively. The central issue is the failure of the sampling process to identify E(y|x). The problem faced by the researcher is to find correct prior restrictions which, when combined with the data, identify the regression. Two kinds of restrictions are examined here. One, which has not been studied before,…
The Logit Model and Response-Based Samples
It is well-known that, under the logit model for binary response, the random sampling and response-based sampling maximum likelihood estimators coincide for all parameters except the intercept. Citing this coincidence, many researchers have assumed the logit model and analyzed data from response-based samples as if those data were obtained by random sampling. We argue that this practice should be avoided unless the researcher really believes the …
Evaluating welfare and training programs
Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem
This paper examines the reflection problem that arises when a researcher observing the distribution of behaviour in a population tries to infer whether the average behaviour in some group influences the behaviour of the individuals that comprise the group. It is found that inference is not possible unless the researcher has prior information specifying the compisition of reference groups. If this information is available, the prospects for infere…
Identification Problems in the Social Sciences
Methodological research in the social sciences aims to learn what conclusions can and cannot be drawn given empirically relevant combinations of assumptions and data. Methodologists have long found it useful to separate inferential problems into statistical and identification components. Studies of identification seek to characterize the conclusions that could be drawn if the researcher had available a sample of unlimited size. Studies of statist…
Evaluating Welfare and Training Programs
Identification Problems in the Social Sciences
Perceptions of Economic Insecurity: Evidence From the Survey of Economic Expectations
Journal Article Perceptions of Economic Insecurity: Evidence from the Survey of Economic Expectations Get access JEFF DOMINITZ, JEFF DOMINITZ Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar CHARLES F. MANSKI CHARLES F. MANSKI Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Public Opinion Quarterly, Volume 61, Issue 2, August 1997, Pages 261–287, https://doi.org/10.1086/297795 Published: 01 August …
Bounding Disagreements about Treatment Effects: A Case Study of Sentencing and Recidivism
Empirical inference on treatment effects is a core objective of social science research. The conventional practice is to obtain point estimates of treatment effects using models that make strong and thereby controversial assumptions about treatment selection and outcomes. In this paper we obtain bounds under weak nonparametric assumptions and explore how the bounds vary with the assumptions imposed. This mode of analysis clarifies the source of c…
Elicitation of Preferences
Monotone Instrumental Variables: With an Application to the Returns to Schooling
Econometric analyses of treatment response commonly use instrumental variable (IV) assumptions to identify treatment effects. Yet the credibility of IV assumptions is often a matter of considerable disagreement. There is therefore good reason to consider weaker but more credible assumptions. To this end, we introduce monotone instrumental variable (MIV) assumptions and the important special case of monotone treatment selection (MTS). We study the…
Teen Expectations for Significant Life Events
Journal Article Teen Expectations for Significant Life Events Get access BARUCH FISCHHOFF, BARUCH FISCHHOFF Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar ANDREW M. PARKER, ANDREW M. PARKER Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar WÄNDI BRUINE DE BRUIN, WÄNDI BRUINE DE BRUIN Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar JULIE DOWNS, JULIE DOWNS Search for other w…
Economic Analysis of Social Interactions
Economics is broadening its scope from analysis of markets to study of general social interactions. Developments in game theory, the economics of the family, and endogenous growth theory have led the way. Economists have also performed new empirical research using observational data on social interactions, but with much less to show. The fundamental problem is that observable outcomes may be generated by many different interaction processes, so e…
Credible Research Practices to Inform Drug Law Enforcement
Chairing the recent National Research Council Committee on Data and Research for Policy on Illegal Drugs, I learned that our nation has invested little in research on drug law enforcement and that the limited available research does not provide a credible basis for formation of drug control policy. This commentary conjectures reasons for the distressing status quo and recommends changes in research practices that may improve matters
Measuring Expectations
This article discusses the history underlying the new literature, describes some of what has been learned thus far, and looks ahead towards making further progress
Confidence Intervals for Partially Identified Parameters
this paper, we study the use of these intervals as CIs for the partially identified parameter f(P,#). Our most basic finding is Lemma 2.1: Lemma 2.1 Let CN0 0, CN1 0, # #, and P #P
How Should We Measure Consumer Confidence
Research on consumer confidence has mainly sought to evaluate the power of available data to predict economic outcomes. In contrast, this article considers how best to measure consumer confidence. We analyze the responses to eight questions that have appeared recently on the Michigan Survey of Consumers; four elicit expectations in the traditional qualitative manner and four use a newer "percent chance" format. Examination of the responses sugges…
Profiling: Introduction to the Feature
Journal Article Profiling: Introduction to the Feature Get access Charles F. Manski Charles F. Manski Northwestern University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Economic Journal, Volume 116, Issue 515, November 2006, Pages F347–F350, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0297.2006.01125.x Published: 21 November 2006
Search Profiling with Partial Knowledge of Deterrence
Consider the choice of a profiling policy where decisions to search for evidence of crime may vary with observable covariates of the persons at risk of search. I pose a planning problem whose objective is to minimise the social cost of crime and search. The consequences of a search rule depend on the extent to which search deters crime. I study the planning problem when the planner has partial knowledge of deterrence. I show how the planner can e…
Computer Science (28 works) · Economics (24 works) · Econometrics (19 works) · Mathematics (17 works) · Political science (14 works) · Psychology (14 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Statistics (11 works) · Economic and Environmental Valuation (8 works) · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics (7 works)