INET Researcher Seminar - Making sense of data when we don’t know the truth, we don’t trust the measurements, and we don’t understand our models - Felix Pretis

Past Event

Date
 14 May 2015, 4:00pm - 5:00pm

Location
 INET Oxford Lecture Theatre
Eagle House, Walton Well Road, Oxford, OX2 6ED

This talk is run by The Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School

Speaker: Felix Pretis

We live in a world of unknown unknowns: unknown events and unknown measurement changes make it difficult to trust observations as we try to evaluate (and forecast with) complex models we cannot solve analytically.

Break detection methods based on indicator saturation can be a useful tool in this world – from detecting unknown events (in this application volcanic eruptions – but also applicable to other shocks), to identifying measurement changes (“Is anyone still using buckets to measure sea surface temperatures?”), and evaluating models where all we have is observations and model predictions (“I cannot solve my model but still want to assess its relative performance”). The techniques developed at INET and presented in this seminar can be useful to anyone working with time series data.

Felix will provide a whirlwind tour through the world of indicator saturation and how it can be useful (and implemented easily) even if you are more concerned about complexity, sustainability, or employment, equity, and growth, than volcanic eruptions 800 years ago.