Title
Machine learning for evaluating and improving theories
Abstract
AbstractWe summarize our recent work that uses machine learning techniques as a complement to theoretical modeling, rather than a substitute for it. The key concepts are those of the completeness and restrictiveness of a model. A theory's completeness is how much it improves predictions over a naive baseline, relative to how much improvement is possible. When a theory is relatively incomplete, machine learning algorithms can help reveal regularities that the theory doesn't capture, and thus lead to the construction of theories that make more accurate predictions. Restrictiveness measures a theory's ability to match arbitrary hypothetical data: A very unrestrictive theory will be complete on almost any data, so the fact that it is complete on the actual data is not very instructive. We algorithmically quantify restrictiveness by measuring how well the theory approximates randomly generated behaviors. Finally, we propose "algorithmic experimental design" as a method to help select which experiments to run.
Year
DOI
Venue
2020
10.1145/3440959.3440962
SIGECOM
Keywords
DocType
Volume
machine learning, economic theory, modeling, prediction
Journal
18
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
1
1551-9031
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Drew Fudenberg117544.93
Annie Liang231.41