Call for Research Assistants – Policy Research Laboratory Fall 2023 The Salem Center for Policy at McCombs is looking for outstanding, curious, and driven students to participate in the Policy Research Laboratory (PRL) in Fall 2023. Students will take a semester long course in statistics, econometrics, and data science to learn the tools necessary for […]
The Disutility of SEIR Model Forecasts During the COVID-19 Pandemic
What are students in the Policy Research Laboratory working on? MAIN RESEARCHERS PRL Students Forecasting models developed by academics are rarely used in high-stakes decision making. When COVID-19 hit, epidemiologists built curve-fitting models (SEIR models) to forecast viral trends, and these predictions were used to justify punishing lockdowns and school closures. These models generated *ridiculously […]