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Reasonable uncertainty: Confidence intervals in empirical Bayes discrimination detection

Jiaying Gu, Nikolaos Ignatiadis, Azeem M. Shaikh

arXiv 18 Aug 2025 · Econometrics

arXiv:2508.13110 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

We revisit empirical Bayes discrimination detection, focusing on uncertainty arising from both partial identification and sampling variability. While prior work has mostly focused on partial identification, we find that some empirical findings are not robust to sampling uncertainty. To better connect statistical evidence to the magnitude of real-world discriminatory behavior, we propose a counterfactual odds-ratio estimand with a attractive properties and interpretation. Our analysis reveals the importance of careful attention to uncertainty quantification and downstream goals in empirical Bayes analyses.

Citation extraction

38
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80
in-text mentions
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Kline and Walters (2021) Reasonable Doubt: Experimental Detection of Job-level Employment Discrimination1.000275100%
2Ignatiadis and Wager (2022) Confidence intervals for nonparametric empirical Bayes analysis1.00095100%
3Arceo-Gomez and Campos-Vazquez (2014) Race and Marriage in the Labor Market: A Discrimination Correspondence Study in a Developing Country0.84333100%
4Fang, Santos, Shaikh, and Torgovitsky (2023) Inference for Large-Scale Linear Systems With Known Coefficients0.73732100%
5Bertrand and Mullainathan (2004) Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination0.64422100%
6Chernozhukov, Newey, and Santos (2023) Constrained Conditional Moment Restriction Models0.64422100%
7Efron (2019) Bayes, Oracle Bayes and Empirical Bayes0.64422100%
8Robbins (1956) An Empirical Bayes Approach to Statistics0.64422100%
9Metcalfe, Sollaci, and Syverson (2023) Managers and Productivity in Retail0.40511100%
10Anderson (1969) Confidence Limits for the Expected Value of an Arbitrary Bounded Random Variable with a Continuous Distribution Function0.40511100%

Showing the top 10 of 38 scored citations.

Cited by, within the corpus

arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1Compound Estimation for Binomials0.40511