Sam Fraiberger Data Scientist World Bank Visiting Researcher

Sam Fraiberger • Data Scientist @ World Bank • Visiting Researcher @ NYU, Northeastern, Harvard • www. samuelfraiberger. com • @spfraib • sfraiberger@worldbank. org

• World Bank’s Mission: • Alleviate Poverty • Shared Prosperity • Big Data Team: • • • Work Across the Organization Micro-surveys “Data Collaboratives” • Grant Opportunities: • • • DT 4 D Deadline March 1 st <150 K • Collaborations:

• Call Detailed Record: • • Lozano-Gracia (World Bank) + Flowminder Home/Work Locations, Connectivity Challenges (Haiti) • Satellite Imagery: • • Kilic (World Bank) + Lobel, Burke (Stanford) More accurate/timely/afforable crop Yield Predictions (Uganda) • News Analytics: • • • Fraiberger (World Bank) + Subramanian, Balashankar (NYU) 20 M Articles Over the Past 30 Years Predict Development Indicators (Macro, Famine, Food, Disease) • “Data Fusion” (Twitter, Google Search, etc. ): • • Fraiberger (World Bank) + Lazer, Grinberg (NEU/Harvard) Twitter: Decahose, 60 M Users in 20 Developing Countries Google Health API Combining big data souces

Investment Trade Infrastructures Market Economy Agriculture Foreign Aid Budget Deficit China India Turkey Colombia Brazil Argentina Indonesia Thailand Malaysia

Agreement Benefit Confidence. Recovery Improvement Optimism Relief Gain Hope Decline Worries Fear Protest Concern Gloom Crisis Burden Threat

• Available in Real Time • Leading Indicator of Growth

• Forecasts Are Often Wrong • Tetlock: • 28 K political predictions • 284 experts • Average forecasters no better than random • Loungani: • Survey of 63 industrial and developing economies • Out of 60 recession, how many were correctly predicted? 2 • How do you know that economists have a sense of humor? • Because they put a decimal on their forecasts.

15% Reduction in Forecast Error

How Can We Do Better? • Large p/Small N Problem e. g. Google Searches, Tweets) • Find “Robust” Predictors with Little Ground Truth Data • Causally linked to a behavior of interest • Stable over time • Next Step: Facebook Ads

• Available in Real Time • Leading Indicator of Unemployment

Sam Fraiberger www. samuelfraiberger. com @spfraib sfraiberger@worldbank. org