Upcoming Events
Colloquium on Computational Social Science/Computational Data Sciences
Jan 29, 2021, 3:00 - 4:30 PM
Social Multipliers and the Covid-19 Epidemic: Analysis through Constrained Maximum Entropy Modeling: View paper here
Author: Duncan K. Foley, Leo Model Professor of Economics, New School for Social Research
Abstract: Social multipliers occur when individual actions influence other individual actions so as to lead to amplified aggregate effects. Epidemic infections offer a dramatic example of this phenomenon since individual actions such as social distancing and masking that have small effects on individuals’ risk can have very large effects in reducing risk when they are widely adopted. This paper uses the info-metric method of constrained maximum entropy modeling to estimate the impact of social multiplier effects in the Covid-19 epidemic with a model that infers the length of infection, the rate of mortality, the base infection factor, and reductions in the infection factor due to changes in social behavior from data on daily infections and deaths. When the model takes account of the rate of reporting of infections, it can produce three rather different scenarios of epidemic dynamics, which have marginally different posterior probabilities: one in which reporting is very low, under 10% and the estimated infection is correspondingly large, and immunity effects play a significant role in stabilizing the epidemic; a second in which reporting is on the order of 25% and the model estimates a significant portion of the population as having inherent immunity to the infection; and a third where reporting rates are close to 100%, and the epidemic is controlled mostly by changes in social behavior. These qualitatively different scenarios reflect the limited data the method can extract information from in this case.
Speaker Bio: Duncan Foley is the Leo Model Professor of Economics at the New School for Social Research, having joined the faculty in 1999. He is also External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute. He received a PhD in Economics from Yale University, and has taught at M.I.T., Stanford, and Barnard College of Columbia University. Professor Foley's interests in economics center on economic theory, political economy, the history of economics, mathematical modeling, and the foundations of statistical reasoning. Recent research includes work on modeling mammalian brain clock, the economics of global warming, economics and thermodynamics, Marxian value theory, social coordination problems, and Bayesian approaches to theory choice. Learn more on his personal homepage.
Concentrations: Classical, neoclassical, and Marxian economic theory; political economy; monetary economics; economic complexity; global environmental economic policy.
All are welcome to attend!
Join WebEx meeting:
Meeting # (access code): 161 962 8856
Meeting password: rQapg4SdH83
Join by video system: Dial 1619628856@gmu.webex.com
Or dial 173.243.2.68 and enter the meeting #
Join by phone: +1-415-655-0003 US Toll
+1-202-860-2110 United States Toll (Wash., D.C.)
Access code: 161 962 8856