Econometrics seminars

Victor Chernozhukov develops sharp bounds on omitted-variable bias for a broad class of causal quantities. The framework covers averages of potential outcomes, average treatment effects, average derivatives, and policy effects generated by shifts in covariate distributions within general nonparametric causal models. Using the Riesz–Fréchet representation of the target quantity, the analysis expresses the bias bound through the additional variation that unobserved variables introduce into the outcome and the relevant Riesz representer. Debiased machine learning then provides flexible statistical inference for the components of these bounds that can be learned from observed data. The approach connects sensitivity analysis for unmeasured confounding with modern causal estimation.

This research panel explores how large and unconventional datasets can produce high-frequency inflation forecasts. Its starting point is renewed concern about inflation following substantial monetary and fiscal stimulus. Alberto Cavallo presents research on real-time inflation measurement. Yves Lemperiere, Adam Rej, José Scheinkman and Michael Woodford join the discussion of alternative data and its economic and financial applications. The panel connects timely measurement with the problem of assessing inflation while conventional economic statistics arrive with a delay.

Ariel Pakes introduces the foundations of demand estimation for differentiated products. Starting from individual preferences and choices, he explains how consumer heterogeneity can be aggregated into market demand and used to study prices, substitution and welfare. The lecture compares modelling products directly with representing them through characteristics, including observed and unobserved attributes. It examines how different assumptions about tastes generate substitution patterns, using examples involving cars and other differentiated goods. Pakes discusses logit models, vertical and horizontal differentiation, and the implications of demand assumptions for markups, competition and policy analysis.