Cornell University economists receive NSF funds

How can policy makers better use data to make decisions? With a National Science Foundation (NSF) Grant, three Cornell economists in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) will develop innovative methods for data-driven policy choices.

Jörg Stoye, professor of economics, Chen Qiu, assistant professor of economics, and Jose Luis Montiel Olea, associate professor of economics and Fellow of Cornell’s Center for Data Science in Enterprise and Society, will receive an award of more than $500,000 for their 2023-2026 project, “Mostly Harmless Statistical Decision Theory.”

The researchers will use the framework of Statistical Decision Theory, the science of making optimal decisions in the face of uncertainty, to develop new decision rules that can be used to make policy choices – scaling job training programs, for example – in complicated but realistic situations.

“Intellectually, the project contributes to our understanding of how policy makers could and should use data to make better decisions,” Stoye said. “Pragmatically, we are especially keen to involve undergraduate students in this research.”