Curriculum Vitae of Stephen T. Ziliak

[Curriculum Vitae  Stephen T Ziliak April 2013]

[right:] “The Haiku Economist”, by Yuko Shimizu

Things beyond number                                  all somehow brought to mind by            blossoming cherries.

-Basho, Hamill, transl.

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS

• Blast from the Past (San Diego, Jan. 4, 2004):  I recently came across a copy of my 2004 plenary address to the American Economic Association, “Size Matters: The Standard Error of Regressions in the American Economic Review” (based on the article by Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey).  Here are the Powerpoint slides:                                                                                                                                                                                       Size Matters Ziliak and McCloskey 2004 AEA Plenary on Statistical Significance                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Chair: Kenneth J. Arrow; Respondent: Deirdre N. McCloskey; Organizer: Morris Altman, Association for Social Economics and Editor, Journal of Socio-Economics (Special issue on Z-M’s research on statistical significance, v. 33, 2004) .  Discussants & Commentators: Morris Altman, Graham Elliott, Sir Clive Granger, Fiona Fidler, Gerd Gigerenzer, Joel Horowitz, Edward Leamer, Peter Lunt, Nathan Berg, Mark Burgman, Geoff Cumming, Anthony O’Brien, Bruce Thompson, Neil Thomason, Erik Thorbecke, Jeffrey Wooldridge, and Arnold Zellner.                                                                                                                                                                                                          An estimated 325-350 economists, journalists, and others attended the “significant” session – including five Nobel laureates and many of the leading econometricians and statisticians of the 20th century.  Lovely day for a regression!  Read more at  The Economist , Journal of Economic Methodology, and Z-M’s reply to discussants and commentators.                                                                                                                                                                                 A few of my favorite quotes from that day: “You and Deirdre are right – keep going!” – Arnold Zellner (University of Chicago); “What should we do with random error?” – Joel Horowitz (Northwestern); “Amazing talk; were you nervous?” – Steve Cullenberg (UC-Riverside); “Excellent job, Mr. Ziliak.” – Ken Arrow (Stanford).

• I, Stephen T. Ziliak, will be on reddit’s “Ask Me Anything”  Thursday, March 28 2013, starting at 6:00 PM Eastern Time.  Ask me anything here. 
  

  Ask me anything on reddit, Thurs. March 28 2013, 6 PM ET.
  - Steve Ziliak

• Ziliak and McCloskey published an article, “We Agree That Statistical Significance Proves Essentially Nothing: A Rejoinder to Thomas Mayer,” in the January 2013 issue of Econ Journal Watch.  The pdf is here: Statistical Significance Ziliak McCloskey Rejoinder to Mayer EJW 2013

Here is Tom Mayer’s original article which started the four article-long exchange between him and Ziliak and McCloskey: “Ziliak and McCloskey’s Criticisms of Significance Tests: An Assessment”

Join the conversation at the mathematician Olle Häggström’s Häggström hävdar blog.

Of related interest, see also: Ziliak’s and McCloskey’s reply to Arnold Zellner, Clive Granger, Ed Leamer, Jeffrey Wooldridge, Joel Horowitz and other critics: “Significance Redux“, Journal of Socio-Economics (2004)

• I, Stephen T. Ziliak, will be on reddit, “Ask Me Anything”/Ask Social Science: Thursday, February 28th, 2013, starting at 6:00 PM Eastern Time.  Ask me anything, but especially anything about the cult of statistical significance; Guinnessometrics; haiku economics; welfare; justice; and rhetoric: here.

             Reddit Ask me Anything/Ask Social Science, Feb. 28, 2013 5 PM CT to ?

• Ziliak’s and McCloskey’s work on significance testing is discussed in a charming Platonic dialogue by the philosopher Deborah Mayo, in her blog Error Statistics (January 2013)

• Ziliak interview on The Cult of Statistical Significance and the relationship between statistics and justice.

• Ziliak is Visiting Professor at École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers ParisTech, Paris, France; Graduate Programs in Risk and Management Sciences, Bioengineering, and English, November 2011 and November 2012.  While in Paris, Professor Ziliak taught four graduate-level courses on Theories of Justice in Economics & Philosophy; Rhetoric & Writing in the Social Sciences; The Cult of Statistical Significance; and Guinnessometrics Against the Gold Standard: On Randomization, Significance, and the Search for Validity.
  

• Ziliak-McCloskey research featured at the Big Think blog: “The Statistical Significance Scandal,” Dec. 11, 2012.

• Correlation or causation? Ziliak’s and McCloskey’s The Cult of Statistical Significance is featured in a Slate magazine article by Daniel Engber (Oct. 2, 2012).  Read the discussion by Shaun Manning, at the University of Michigan Press (October 5, 2012).
  

• Ziliak essay on “Statistical Significance” was published in the Encyclopedia of Quality of Life Research Springer, 2013; Alex C. Michalos, editor.

• Ziliak’s and McCloskey’s The Cult of Statistical Significance and the U.S. Supreme Court are discussed at the Stanford University Center for Law and Biosciences.
  

• Debate about statistical significance, featuring Stephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey, was published in the September 2012 issue of Econ Journal Watch: “Statistical Significance in the New Tom and the Old Tom: A Reply to Thomas Mayer”

Here is Mayer’s original article, “Ziliak and McCloskey’s Criticisms of Significance Tests: An Assessment”

• Article by Stephen T. Ziliak forthcoming in the December issue of Significance magazine (Royal Statistical Society): “Visualizing Uncertainty: Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Regressions?”

• Ziliak comments on Higgs boson and statistical significance, in The Wall Street Journal (July 6, 2012).  See also: “Statisticians in the News,” American Statistical Association (July 2012).

• Ziliak article on “Visualizing Uncertainty” was published in the July 2012 issue of the International Journal of Forecasting. When forecasting economic variables, are scatter plots better than standard regression output, such as R-squared and t-stats? Read more at: “Visualizing Economic Uncertainty: On the Soyer-Hogarth Experiment,” Economist’s View (July 11, 2012).

• Visiting Professor, Katholieke Universiteit, LICOS Center for Institutions and Economic Performance, Leuven, Belgium, May 2012.

• Visiting Professor, Kadir Has University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Istanbul, Turkey, April 2012.

• New article on behavioral econometrics by Stephen T. Ziliak: “Visualizing Uncertainty: Comment on Soyer’s and Hogarth’s ‘The Illusion of Predictability: How Regression Statistics Mislead Experts’,” International Journal of Forecasting (July 2012).  Special issue on Soyer-Hogarth Experiment, with S. Ziliak, J. Scott Armstrong, D. Goldstein, K. Ord, N. N. Taleb, R. Hogarth, and E. Soyer. Read the SSRN working paper version, here: Visualizing Uncertainty_Ziliak comment on Soyer Hogarth_IJF 2012

• Article on W.S. Gosset aka “Student,” Guinness beer, and balanced designs vs. randomization in field experiments in economics: Stephen T. Ziliak, “W. S. Gosset and Some Neglected Concepts in Experimental Statistics: Guinnessometrics II,” Journal of Wine Economics 6 (2, 2011), pp. 252-277.  Published in a symposium on Beeronomics. Here is the article:  William S Gosset and Experimental Statistics Ziliak JWE 2011.
  

• Read more about Gosset and Guinnessometrics in the Feb. 8, 2012 issue of The Washington Post, “Guinness’s Big Contribution to Economics Research;” in the Feb. 9, 2012 issue of Chicago Magazine, “Guinnessometrics: Saving Science and Statistics with Beer;” in the Feb. 8, 2012 “Recommended economics writing,” at The Economist; in “The Statistical Significance of Beer,” at Freakonomics; “Beer, Statistics, and Quality,” at Minitab; “Beer and Stats,” at The University of Michigan Press Blog; “We Know Now,” at The Irish Times; “In the News,” at the American Association of Wine Economists, and “Beerometrics: Econometrics and the Science of Beer,” at Beeronomics.

• Steve Ziliak and the Roosevelt University Department of Economics are featured in the March 7th and March 8th, 2012 issues of Remapping Debate: “Reform Agenda: Classes That Make You Think,” by Mike Alberti, and “Don’t Know Much About History, Don’t Know Much Economy . . . “, by Mike Alberti.
  

• “Haiku Economics“, by Stephen T. Ziliak, was cited by Poetry as one of the  “most-read articles” of 2011.
• Ziliak’s article – on the relation between haiku poetry, feelings, politics, and economics – appears in Poetry’s January 2011 “The View From Here” column.  According to the Associate Editor of Poetry, “Haiku Economics” is probably the most-read article in that column’s history.  Previous contributors to “The View From Here” column include philosopher Richard Rorty, author Christopher Hitchens, comedienne Lynda Barry, singer-songwriter Neko Case, and John Wooden – the poet and legendary UCLA basketball coach. Read more
  

• Article on balanced v. randomized field experiments in economics, published by Aarhus University, Denmark, Center for Research in Econometric Analysis of Time Series (CREATES): Field Experiments Comment on Levitt and List CREATES No. 2011-25

• Post at Mark Thoma’s blog, Economist’s View: Randomized Field Experiments were Tried and Rejected More Than a Century Ago*

* “Recommended economics writing” by The Economist (July 20th, 2011) and “Statisticians in the News”, by the American Statistical Association

* On randomized trials in medicine, see also: Stephen T. Ziliak’s The Validus Medicus and a New Gold Standard, The Lancet, Volume 376, Issue 9738, Pages 324 – 325, 31 July 2010

• Video on Ethics in Economics, Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), History of Economics Playground by “The Kids”, Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, NH; recorded: April 8-11, 2011; published: October, 2011.
  

• Video on Teaching Economics After the Crisis, Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), History of Economics Playground by “The Kids”, Mount Washington Hotel, Bretton Woods, NH; recorded: April 8-11, 2011; published: October, 2011.
  

• Article and special lecture: Supreme Court Finds Statistical Significance Is Not Necessary for Causation Matrixx v Siracusano Student v Fisher_Ziliak PDF, Late-Breaking Session, Joint Statistical Meetings (JSM), 2011, Miami Beach, FL.  Panelists: Stephen T.  Ziliak, Joseph “Jay” Kadane, Daniel Kaplan, and Donald Rubin.

The article is: Stephen T. Ziliak, “Matrixx v. Siracusano and Student v. Fisher: Statistical Significance on Trial,” Significance 8 (3, 2011), published by the Royal Statistical Society and the American Statistical Association, pp.131-134.

• Keynote Lecture: “Guinnessometrics: Lovely Day for a Regression,”  European Historical Economics Society Conference, Guinness Storehouse, Dublin, Ireland, Sept. 3, 2011.

• Lecture, “If I Have to Experiment, Should I Randomize? How a Profit-Seeking Brewer Rejected Random Designs of Experiments, Preferring the Perfectly Balanced ABBA,” 2nd Conference on Beeronomics: The Economics of Beer and Brewing, Technische Universität München,  Munich & Freising, Germany, Sept. 21-24, 2011.

• Haiku Economics, Poetry lecture and reading in Regina Buccola’s “Introduction to Poetry Writing” course, Roosevelt University, Oct. 3, 2011.

• The Cult of Statistical Significance: Health Science after Matrixx v Siracusano, lecture and discussion, University of Wisconsin-Madison, School of Medicine and Public Health, Oct. 10-11, 2011. [Video]
  

• The Cult of Statistical Significance, Society of Actuaries, Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, Oct. 18, 2011.

• École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers ParisTechArts et Métiers: Visiting Professor, Paris, France; Management Sciences, Bioengineering, and English, November 2011; and: Sorbonne-Institut d’Administration des Entreprises de Paris (Sorbonne Graduate Business School): Visiting Professor, Paris, France, November 2011.

• Supreme Court Finds Statistical Significance Is Not Necessary for Causation Matrixx v Siracusano Student v Fisher_Ziliak PDF, lecture and discussion, American Statistical Association, Chicago Chapter, Chicago, IL, Dec. 6, 2011.
  

• Chair, “Best Article in the History of Economics,” History of Economics Society, 2011-2012.  Nomination information is here.
  

• Occupy yourself, with Limericks, Dec. 1, 2011:#Occupy Limericks Stephen T Ziliak Economics

IN THE NEWS

Read about Gosset and Guinness, in The Washington Post.

In light of the November 2011 Harvard-student walk out, protesting the bias of Greg Mankiw’s introduction to economics course, INET interviewed Stephen T. Ziliak asking about his  The Grapes of Wrath course (Econ 102 syllabus) Fall 2009 which he has taught since 1996 as an antidote to conventional economics education.

Read more at Better Living Through Beowulf, “Steinbeck Makes Microeconomics Real,” by Robin Bates (English, St. Mary’s College Maryland);  AntiCap, “We are not Mankiw,” by David Ruccio (Economics, University of Notre Dame); Economist’s View, “A Bluesy Road-Novel with a Lot of Economic Theory and Analysis,” by Mark Thoma.

Review of Ziliak’s and McCloskey’s best-selling book at The University of Michigan Press, The Cult of Statistical Significance, in the November 2011 issue of Significance magazine (Royal Statistical Society and American Statistical Association).  Reviewed by Terry Weight.

See also: Stephen T. Ziliak’s entry on “Rhetoric”, published in the International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (Gale, 2007), William Darity, Jr., Editor:  Rhetoric of Social Sciences Ziliak entry IESS 2007