Dan Schwab

Labor / development economist at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA, USA.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@MBTA_CR @TracyNovick Thank you, glad to get those trains back!

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@arindube @brianschatz Solution is to somehow make monopsony a normal thing that normal people say all the time.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@matt_blackwell He should just post a graph showing polling outcome variance declining as we get closer to the election. He didn’t need to get into the part about the binomial distribution.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@matt_blackwell Ok, thanks. Aren’t all results except the top lines unweighted?

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@arindube @NateSilver538 Agreed. Seems easy to say that someone is herding (for some sets of outcomes) and basically impossible to say that any individual pollster is herding.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@rnishimura I know 538 rates pollsters for transparency and I assume other groups do too. They should give credit to any firm that does preregister.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@gelliottmorris What if all pollsters replaced national polls with polls of the 7 swing states? Could happen gradually or with a coordinated decision.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@gelliottmorris I agree with all of these criticisms of pooled battleground state polls but national polls are even worse (for the purpose of predicting an election).

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@gelliottmorris In your screenshot the point estimate for PA is Harris +0.9. In the current 538 polling average it’s Harris +0.1. That’s a big difference!

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@skywalkm Yikes!

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@matt_blackwell My understanding is polls are weighted so the topline is representative, but subgroups are not. So if for some reason black men are more likely polled than black women, that would show up as low black support for Harris. Is that right?

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@ebwhamilton Cool stuff! FYI the MA link downloads MT data.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@binarybits Is there a rule taught in journalism school that for every good thing you’re required to find worst aspect of it and pretend the downside is important? This is like people complaining that wind turbines don’t get recycled.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@arindube @MayankSeksaria I agree that when Harris’s number was around 38 it was very predictable that it was going to move towards 50, but it’s asking a lot for his model to handle the DNC well without an ad hoc adjustment given the candidate switch.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@aaronbgreiner @sainzcaccia Is this the first useful thing that has happened at a community meeting?

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@Bartleby_Kamoi @transitapp The app Citymapper does this (in Boston at least). I don't love the app though.

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@transitapp Is there a way to see bike+transit+bike options (i.e., bringing my bike on Boston's commuter rail).

[Dan Schwab @dannyschwab]

@NSideras @transitapp I deleted the app and re-downloaded and I saw the new features.