Insights / Research Brief•Feb 21, 2024

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Algorithms

Jens Ludwig, Sendhil Mullainathan, Ashesh Rambachan

Policies that implement the use of algorithms for making pretrial release decisions, referring medical patients for testing, and guiding workplace safety inspections would provide large benefits and pay for themselves in the long run.

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¹ Kleinberg, Jon, Himabindu Lakkaraju, Jure Leskovec, Jens Ludwig and Sendhil Mullainathan (2018a) “Human decisions and machine predictions.” Quarterly Journal of Economics.

² Mullainathan, Sendhil and Ziad Obermeyer (2022) “Diagnosing physician error: A machine learning approach to low-value care.” Quarterly Journal of Economics. 137(2): 679-727.

³ Johnson, Matthew S., David I. Levine and Michael W. Toffel (2023) “Improving regulatory effectiveness through better targeting: Evidence from OSHA.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. 15(4): 30–67.

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