{"id":199182,"date":"2016-11-14T13:30:02","date_gmt":"2016-11-14T18:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/?p=199182"},"modified":"2016-11-16T13:32:37","modified_gmt":"2016-11-16T18:32:37","slug":"dont-complain-that-polls-were-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/dont-complain-that-polls-were-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"Don&#8217;t complain that polls were wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In his latest column for <em>Bloomberg View<\/em>, University of Rochester economics professor Narayana Kocherlakota explains the limitations of statistical forecasting, especially in relation to the recent U.S. election. \u201cStatisticians use available information to help us make better decisions when we can\u2019t be sure what will happen in the future,\u201d he writes, before illustrating with a football analogy.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, polls function as guides to decision-making, not as a means to predict the future with certainty. Calculated probabilities based on data can be combined with an assessment of the current situation in order to make informed choices.<\/p>\n<p>Hillary Clinton\u2019s decision not to campaign personally in Wisconsin might have been a mistake in retrospect. But, Kocherlakota cautions, \u201cwe\u2019ll never know whether it was wrong given the information that the pollster and Clinton had at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kocherlakota is the Lionel W. McKenzie Professor of Economics at Rochester and was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.<\/p>\n<p>Read the full article at<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/view\/articles\/2016-11-14\/don-t-complain-that-the-polls-were-wrong\"> <em>Bloomberg View<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor of Economics and <em>Bloomberg View<\/em> columnist Narayana Kocherlakota explains the role of polls\u2014and statistical forecasting in general\u2014as part of the U.S. election process.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":372,"featured_media":199192,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29212],"tags":[23322,25772,12792,16072],"class_list":["post-199182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-voices-opinion","tag-department-of-economics","tag-narayana-kocherlakota","tag-politics","tag-school-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Don&#039;t complain that polls were wrong<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/newscenter\/dont-complain-that-polls-were-wrong\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" 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