Applied economics research by topic
This research index organizes applied economics across AI methods and four policy domains. One rule governs the cards: a numerical result travels with the evidence status stated on its linked page.
AI Methodology
Methods for data validation, transit routing, API collection, and AI-assisted research. Each article states whether its numerical case has public materials.
Comparing logistic regression with language-model readouts for survey prediction
The article reports a local survey-prediction comparison. Its scripts, data provenance, saved outputs, and run record are not public, so the exact model rankings are not independently reproduced.
A regression view of steering vectors
The article reports a local estimator experiment. Its scripts, construction corpus, saved outputs, and run record are not public, so the numerical comparison is not independently reproduced.
Prediction-powered inference for AI-assisted survey estimation
The article teaches the estimator through a local HINTS imputation example and a separate simulation. Neither has a public script, data-provenance record, saved output, or run record.
Food Security
Food access, SNAP enrollment, grocery store distribution, and the complex relationship between geography and food insecurity in California.
The Food Desert Myth
Published comparison under reconciliation: the article reports zero food deserts by the federal definition and 4.7x variation in SNAP participation across selected communities.
Hidden Mobility Deserts
The site currently reports incompatible 13-tract and 1,086-tract populations for this topic. The population and transit record are under reconciliation.
The Vulnerability Paradox, Under Reconciliation
The article reports an inverse access pattern, but its population, component measures, and cross-page direction remain under reconciliation.
Transit Equity
Transit access and economic opportunity: mobility measurement, accessibility indices, and transportation barriers.
Hidden Mobility Deserts
Published pages report incompatible 13-tract and 1,086-tract populations. Neither count should be treated as verified until one matched output derives the result.
Transit Equity and Race, Under Reconciliation
Related pages report opposite mobility-desert directions and different tract populations. The descriptive and adjusted comparisons are not verified.
Renters vs. Owners: Housing Tenure and Grocery Access
A published housing-tenure comparison whose population, access measures, and model interpretation remain under reconciliation.
Education Policy
School funding, special education budgets, and how districts respond to fiscal constraints, stimulus funding, and federal mandates.
Published Special-Education Budget Pattern
Article-only descriptive category trends; no matching public output reproduces the $1.2B comparison or a causal shift of cuts.
The Fiscal Cliff Schools Faced After the Stimulus
Article-only aggregate funding pattern around ARRA; the 8.7% decline is not publicly reproduced and no counterfactual is identified.
The Unfunded Mandate
Article-reported federal-share comparison; no matching public output currently reproduces the series.
Health Policy
Medicaid fraud detection, public-coverage data, and the gap between administrative records and the populations they describe.
What 238 Million Medicaid Billing Rows Can Support
Official HHS metadata confirms the row count. The article explains the file's screening uses and why its administrative fields do not supply a valid fraud label.
The Label Problem
Why training a fraud classifier is harder than it looks: positive-only labels and selection bias.
Can a Classifier Find What Investigators Miss?
A guide to temporal validation and interpretable baselines. The model sample, base rate, and classifier metrics remain under reconciliation.
Methods & tools
- AI research workflows: Claude Code guides for academic research.
- Open-source methods: Python workflows and validation studies.
- Grocery tier validation: a scalable food-environment quality method.
- Glossary: methods and terms used across the research.
- Tools & code: public tools and selected research materials.
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