Week 9: Data and Privacy

Guiding Questions

In this week’s meeting, we look at some examples of how census data can be used to help with policy design and implementation. We discuss how modern privacy measures aim to protect individual privacy, the trade-offs these measures introduce, and whether they strike the right balance between protecting privacy and enabling data utility for policymaking. To prepare for this meeting, be sure to also check out The Opportunity Atlas.

Required readings

• Esty, Daniel and Rushing, Reece (2007). The Promise of Data-Driven Policymaking. Issues in Science and Technology, 23(4), pp. 67–72. (skim only).
• Chetty, Raj and Friedman, John N and Hendren, Nathaniel and Jones, Maggie R and Porter, Sonya R (2018). The Opportunity Atlas: Mapping the Childhood Roots Of Social Mobility. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper No. 25147.
• Ruggles, Steven (2024). When Privacy Protection Goes Wrong: How and Why the 2020 Census Confidentiality Program Failed. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 38(2), pp. 201–226.
• Bowen, Claire McKay (2024). Government Data of the People, by the People, for the People: Navigating Citizen Privacy Concerns. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 38(2), pp. 181–200.

Further reading

• Jean, Neal and Burke, Marshall and Xie, Michael and Davis, W Matthew and Lobell, David B and Ermon, Stefano (2016). Combining Satellite Imagery and Machine Learning To Predict Poverty. Science, 353(6301), pp. 790–794.
• Proville, Jeremy and Zavala-Araiza, Daniel and Wagner, Gernot (2017). Night-Time Lights: A Global, Long Term Look at Links to Socio-economic Trends. PLOS ONE, 12(3), pp. e0174610.
• Donaldson, Dave and Storeygard, Adam (2016). The View From Above: Applications of Satellite Data in Economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 30(4), pp. 171–98.
• Chetty, Raj and Hendren, Nathaniel and Kline, Patrick and Saez, Emmanuel (2014). Where Is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography Of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 129(4), pp. 1553–1623.
• Bak-Coleman, Joseph and O'Connor, Cailin and Bergstrom, Carl and West, Jevin (2025). The Risks of Industry Influence in Tech Research. , arXiv preprint No. 2510.19894.