Kirk Bansak

Improving refugee integration through data-driven algorithmic assignment

Data-driven refugee assignment The continuing refugee crisis has made it necessary for governments to find ways to resettle individuals and families in host communities. Bansak et al. used a machine learning approach to develop an algorithm for geographically placing refugees to optimize their overall employment rate. The authors developed and tested the algorithm on segments of registry data from the United States and Switzerland. The algorithm improved the employment prospects of refugees in the United States by ∼40% and in Switzerland by ∼75%. Science, this issue p. 325 A machine learning–based algorithm for assigning refugees can improve their employment prospects over current approaches. Developed democracies are settling an increased number of refugees, many of whom face challenges integrating into host societies. We developed a flexible data-driven algorithm that assigns refugees across resettlement locations to improve integration outcomes. The algorithm uses a combination of supervised machine learning and optimal matching to discover and leverage synergies between refugee characteristics and resettlement sites. The algorithm was tested on historical registry data from two countries with different assignment regimes and refugee populations, the United States and Switzerland. Our approach led to gains of roughly 40 to 70%, on average, in refugees’ employment outcomes relative to current assignment practices. This approach can provide governments with a practical and cost-efficient policy tool that can be immediately implemented within existing institutional structures.

Beyond the Breaking Point? Survey Satisficing in Conjoint Experiments

Recent years have seen a renaissance of conjoint survey designs within social science. To date, however, researchers have lacked guidance on how many attributes they can include within conjoint profiles before survey satisficing leads to unacceptable declines in response quality. This paper addresses that question using pre-registered, two-stage experiments examining choices among hypothetical candidates for U.S. Senate or hotel rooms. In each experiment, we use the first stage to identify attributes which are perceived to be uncorrelated with the attribute of interest--and so cannot be masked by those core attributes. In the second stage, we randomly assign respondents to conjoint designs with varying numbers of those filler attributes. We report the results of these experiments implemented via Amazons Mechanical Turk or Survey Sampling International. They demonstrate that our core quantities of interest are generally stable, with relatively modest increases in survey satisficing when respondents face large numbers of attributes.

BIODEFENSE AND TRANSPARENCY

This article assesses, via analysis of two case studies, the relationship between the dual-use nature of biological research and negative perceptions of the US biodefense program. The primary case study is the controversy over the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, an as-yet-unopened maximum-containment biodefense facility in Boston that some locals suspect will be used for illegal offensive biological weapons (BW) work. Lessons from this controversy are considered in the international context via a second case study: the Cold War-era Soviet bioweapons program, which was continued in part due to the Soviet belief that the US biodefense program was really a cover for offensive BW work. The two case studies demonstrate that misperceptions of US biodefense can have serious consequences that may threaten US national security. Underlying such misperceptions is the unavoidable dilemma of dual-use—legitimate peaceful research and technologies can overlap with offensive military activities. Politics play a critical role in determining outsiders’ interpretations of the intent of US biodefense activities, transforming the dual-use dilemma from a descriptive concept into a problem in which misperceptions can be highly damaging. Taking into account the important role of political relations, the article argues that negative perceptions of the US biodefense program should not be simply accepted as a fait accompli, intrinsic to the dual-use nature of the life sciences, but rather that they can and should be addressed. The article identifies greater transparency measures as crucial to doing this.

The Number of Choice Tasks and Survey Satisficing in Conjoint Experiments

In recent years, political and social scientists have made increasing use of conjoint survey designs to study decision-making. Here, we study a consequential question which researchers confront when implementing conjoint designs: how many choice tasks can respondents perform before survey satisficing degrades response quality? To answer the question, we run a set of experiments where respondents are asked to complete as many as 30 conjoint tasks. Experiments conducted through Amazons Mechanical Turk and Survey Sampling International demonstrate the surprising robustness of conjoint designs, as there are detectable but quite limited increases in survey satisficing as the number of tasks increases. Our evidence suggests that in similar study contexts researchers can assign dozens of tasks without substantial declines in response quality.

Europeans support a proportional allocation of asylum seekers

What type of common asylum regime would Europeans support? We conducted a survey asking 18,000 citizens of 15 European countries about their preferences regarding different mechanisms for allocating asylum seekers across countries. A large majority supports an allocation that is proportional to each country’s capacity over the status quo policy of allocation based on the country of first entry. This majority support is weakened but persists even among a randomly assigned subset of respondents who were made aware that moving to proportional allocation would increase the number of asylum seekers allocated to their own country. These results suggest that citizens care deeply about the fairness of the responsibility-sharing mechanism, rather than only the consequences of the asylum policy. The findings also highlight a potential pathway towards reform of the Common European Asylum System.

Aristotelian Equality and International Cooperation: Europeans Prefer a Proportional Asylum Regime

What type of asylum regime do European citizens support? Based on a survey experiment involving 18,000 citizens across fifteen European countries, we examine public support for alternative mechanisms for allocating asylum seekers across Europe. We provide novel evidence showing that public preferences on this issue are driven largely by adherence to the Aristotelian norm of proportional equality, which tends to override consequentialist considerations. Specifically, we find that a large majority supports a proportional allocation regime, whereby asylum seekers would be allocated proportional to each country’s capacity, over the current status quo policy under the Dublin Regulation. This majority support is weakened but persists even when citizens are made aware that moving to proportional allocation would increase the number of asylum seekers allocated to their own country. These findings suggest citizens care not only about the consequences of international policy but also about the inherent fairness of its institutional design, and they present a potential pathway toward reform of the European asylum system that would be agreeable at both the international and domestic level.

CORRESPONDENCE: Trust in the Age of Bioweapons

Distrust of the US government’s motives in biodefense may have negative consequences, including lack of support at home and suspicion abroad. In ‘‘Biodefense and Transparency: The Dual-Use Dilemma’’ (18.2, July 2011, pp. 349 68), Kirk Bansak argues that the United States must do more to increase transparency to discourage other nations from embarking on biological weapons programs. Indeed, the United States can, and should, do more to explain the importance of biodefense and to reassure that efforts are truly for defense. Yet while allaying suspicions is important, the top priority for the United States needs to be actual biodefense capability. The United States is currently on the right track to counter misperceptions of its biological defense program. One major recent step was posting the US confidencebuilding measures (CBMs) declarations under the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) on the public side of the BWC Implementation Support Unit website. Of the 164 nations that are party to the BWC, only 63 submitted CBMs by November 2011, and only 18 nations allowed them to be publicly accessible. In addition, the United States has invited visitors from other nations to the US National Interagency Biodefense Campus at Fort Detrick to see firsthand the defensive nature of the work. The United States also instituted, years ago, a ‘‘treaty compliance’’ review at the Department of Homeland Security for biodefense projects. While distrust in US motives might lead a nation to embark on a biological weapons program, as Bansak argues, pursuing a biological weapons program is already an option currently available to all nations. Compared to nuclear weapons in particular, making biological weapons is inexpensive, the technology already exists and is widely available, and the starting materials are present in every nation on earth. Last year my colleagues and I published a survey, ‘‘Everywhere You Look: Select Agent Pathogens,’’ which showed that in period of less than two years anthrax disease was reported in more than fifty countries on public health sites. This almost certainly underestimates the true number of infections caused by Bacillus anthracis. In addition, many other pathogens thought to have weapons potential are isolated from sick animals or people and are grown in laboratories, all over the world, all the time; furthermore, the misuse of modern biotechnologies could lead to advanced technologies or altered pathogens. Individuals and small groups already have the ability to make a biological weapon. According to the FBI, a single scientist who had no special training in designing bioweapons was able to commit the anthrax letter attacks in 2001. More than a decade later, it is as difficult to make and use a biological weapon as it will ever be; that is, it will only get easier in the future, as powerful biotechnologies become more commonplace. Given the harm that could result from using a biological weapon, as well as the accessibility of the materials and technologies needed, it would be a profound mistake if the Trust in the Age of Bioweapons