Speaker:

Guy Aridor, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Title:

The Value of Belief Data in Online Recommendation Systems

Abstract:

Designing algorithmic recommendation systems on online platforms is simultaneously a data collection and an algorithmic problem, though most work has focused on the algorithmic aspects. In this talk, I’ll describe several recent papers that show the value of collecting data not just on consumption behavior, but also on pre-consumption attitudes — what consumers think about items they have not consumed. I’ll discuss how an economic model of user consumption choices in environments that incorporates these attitudes can rationalize empirical consumption patterns on a movie recommendation platform, MovieLens. We then test the assumptions of and the hypotheses generated by this model in a field experiment on MovieLens that collects such belief data in order to decompose the mechanisms that drive the effectiveness of recommendations. Finally, I’ll discuss a practical procedure and a resulting open-source dataset collected via this procedure that we implement on the MovieLens platform that allows for the collection of such data at scale that can enable the incorporation of such data into the design of recommendation systems.

Speaker Bio:

Guy Aridor is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at Northwestern Kellogg School of Management and a research affiliate at CESifo. His research employs tools from economics and quantitative marketing to investigate policy and antitrust issues in the digital economy, as well as the effects of new technologies on consumer behavior. He has a particular interest in consumer privacy, recommendation systems, and social media platforms. He holds a PhD in economics from Columbia University and a BA in pure/applied mathematics, computer science, and economics from Boston University.

Location:

In person: Chambers Hall, 600 Foster Street, Lower Level
Remote option: https://northwestern.zoom.us/j/99906995637
Passcode: NICO24

About the Speaker Series:

Wednesdays@NICO is a vibrant weekly seminar series focusing broadly on the topics of complex systems, data science and network science. It brings together attendees ranging from graduate students to senior faculty who span all of the schools across Northwestern, from applied math to sociology to biology and every discipline in-between. Please visit: https://bit.ly/WedatNICO for information on future speakers.

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