Applied Statistics - Jeff Gill 

 Today at noon, the Applied Statistics Workshop will present a talk by  Jeff Gill  of the Department of Political Science at the University of California at Davis.  Professor Gill received his Ph.D from American University and served on the faculty at Cal Poly and the University of Florida before moving to Davis in 2004.  His research focuses on the application of Bayesian methods and statistical computing to substantive questions in political science.  He is the organizer for this year's  Summer Methods Meeting  sponsored by the Society for Political Methodology, which will be held at Davis in July.  He will be a visiting professor in the Harvard Government Department during the 2006-2007 academic year. 

 Professor Gill will present a talk entitled " Elicited Priors for Bayesian Model Specifications in Political Science Research ." This talk is based on joint work with  Lee Walker , who is currently a visiting scholar at IQSS. The presentation will be at noon on Wednesday, March 22 in Room N354, CGIS North, 1737 Cambridge St. Lunch will be provided. The abstract of the paper follows on the jump: 


 

 We explain how to use elicited priors in Bayesian political science research. These are a form of prior information produced by previous knowledge from structured interviews with subjective area experts who 
have little or no concern for the statistical aspects of the project. The purpose is to introduce qualitative and area-specific information into an empirical model in a systematic and organized manner in order to produce parsimonious yet realistic implications.  Currently, there is no work in political science that articulates elicited priors in a Bayesian specification. We demonstrate the value of the approach by applying elicited priors to a problem in judicial comparative politics using data and elicitations we collected in Nicaragua.