Sociology seminar – Thursdays

Time: 12:15 pm – 1:30 pm 
Date: 6th Febuary 2024
Place: room 3001

Felix ELWERT (University of Wisconsin-Madison) – Causal decomposition of group disparities

Abstract:

Social scientists often ask how an intermediate treatment variable contributes to group-based outcome disparities. E.g., how does family formation contribute to the gender-wage gap; how does access to medical treatment contribute to racial differences in health; or how does education contribute to intergenerational income persistence? This talk has three parts.  Conceptually, we develop a new causal and model-free decomposition approach that identifies a previously overlooked mechanism (within-group selection into treatment), which can explain the generation of outcome disparities and informs a new remediating intervention. Statistically, we derive nonparametric estimators that are root-n consistent, semiparametrically efficient and multiply robust. Empirically, we demonstrate that both differential prevalence of and differential selection into college graduation contribute to the disparity in income attainment between income origin groups.

 Joint work with : Ang Yu

Organizers: Annina Cleasson, Paola Tubaro, Patrick Präg (CREST Sociology unit)

Sponsors: CREST