Sounds like the approach used by Gary King, famous for his solution to
the "ecological" inference problem in dealing with aggregate data of
voter behavior. He uses a hierarchical Bayes approach. See
http://gking.harvard.edu/,
http://gking.harvard.edu/eicamera/kinroot.html
Jeff Borchers
Judea Pearl wrote:
> Has anyone heard about this work before?
> What is a "Hierarchical Bayes" approach?
> =========Judea
>
>
> 01/07/2001
> The Economic Times
>
> Copyright (C) 2001 The Economic Times; Source: World Reporter (TM)
>
> WANT TO know if the next planned blockbuster will hit the charts? Do you
> know that thrillers are popular in Japan and Mexico or that romantic movies
> doing well in the US, Germany, Sweden and South Africa are least likely to
> do well in other international markets? Ask Dr Pradeep Chintagunta,
> professor at the University of Chicago who has worked on a unique model
> based on the "hierarchical Bayesian" approach, a statistical form that lets
> a user input information at more than one stage in the research, that
> forecasts the future of an unreleased movie.
> According to The Economist, Chintagunta worked along with professor Ramya
> Neelamegham, on the Bayesian model using box office figures for 35 movies,
> each of which was released in 14 countries, taking into account various
> factors, including cultural preferences, genre, and the reputations of
> leading actors. Brazil and Britain were found to be the most unpredictable
> markets (43 per cent average error rate), with Japan and Germany the most
> predictable (only 21 per cent average error rate). So can Bollywood be far
> behind and would he work this model for India? Says Chintagunta: "This
> should not be a problem as long as accurate numbers are published. One of
> the issues is whether reported numbers are correct. Even if they are, will
> they be available for several periods - weeks, months - at least for a 'BAS'
> set of movies?" Meanwhile, Chintagunta has extended this model to new tech
> products like digital cameras. He claims the model can be used in
> management. "We have been contacted by a lot of folks. Unfortunately, they
> tend to have shortterm needs and do not have the data readily available to
> give us." Chintagunta says what really brought him to the US was "not a
> very challenging banking job in India." He did his BT in mechanical
> engineering from the Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University in
> 1984 and MS (management) from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.
> Having got his PhD from the Northwestern University, he was an assistant
> professor of marketing, Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell
> University before joining the faculty at the University of Chicago graduate
> school of business where he has been since 1995. He was awarded the Hillel
> Einhorn Award for Excellence in Teaching, (Barcelona) Program, 1999. His
> journalistic career spans many publications as editor, Journal of Business;
> area editor, Marketing Science; and associate editor, Management Science,
> Journal of Business and Economic Statistics. Life moves at a cerebral pace
> at the GSB in the University of Chicago where he teaches marketing strategy
> and marketing management. He says: "Working here is terrific. Chicago is as
> close to intellectual utopia as you can get. I find it very challenging. I
> have colleagues who are super smart and I consider it a privilege to be part
> of the group of faculty here. The students, MBA and PhD are also extremely
> bright and keep you on your toes." Chintagunta is quite Indian in his food
> habits, values, music and films. "My wife is Spanish," he says, "and we need
> to get our regular `dosa fix. Family values in Spain and India are very
> similar so it works out well. We enjoy spending time with both our families
> and try to do it every year if possible." He has researched issues relating
> to brand repositioning, new brand introduction, estimation of brand use from
> household goods scanner-panel data and has done an analysis of household
> purchase behaviour. Using data on supermarket scanners, Chintagunta has
> tried to figure out how consumers make purchase decisions. Are they driven
> by price? Are they loyal? How do various brands compete with one another for
> consumer attention. Currently working on how companies interact with one
> another, he adds: "I am just finishing a paper on pharmaceutical pricing.
> Firms set prices in many geographic markets (countries) taking into account
> the local market response to price, interaction with other firms in other
> markets. "For instance, Pfizer may not want to lower prices to compete with
> Merck in UK as it knows Merck can retaliate by lowering prices in UK and the
> US. The paper attempts to decompose prices into the three components."
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