Felix Elwert

Research Interest Statement:

My research advances the understanding of two interlocking areas of social inequality: First, I investigate the contextual drivers of inequality, including neighborhood, network, and family effects. Second, I analyze the demography of inequality. All of my work pursues a theory-driven approach to causal inference. I especially focus on problems of dynamic selection to understand how contexts and demography shape individual life chances, their distributions, and their transmission within and across generations.

Education:

M.A., Statistics, Harvard University, 2006

Ph.D., Sociology, Harvard University, 2007

Departmental Areas of Interest:

Social Stratification, Methods and Statistics, Demography and Ecology, Education, Family, Aging and the Life Course

Classes:

Soc 120 Marriage and the Family
Soc 362 Statistics for Sociologists III
Soc 952  Causal Inference
Soc 952 Graphical Causal Models
Soc 952 Causal Peer Effects
Soc 952 Causal Mediation Analysis
Soc 995 Graduate Training Seminar in Demography

Other Campus Affiliations:

Center for Demography and Ecology
Center for Demography of Health and Aging

Additional Information:

Dr. Elwert wins the first Causality in Statistics Education Award from the American Statistical Association

Dr. Elwert wins the 2018 Leo Goodman Award from the American Sociological Association

Click here for more information on Dr. Elwert’s Short Courses on Causal Inference

Selected Publications:

Keele, L., Randolph T. Stevenson, and Felix Elwert. 2019. “The causal interpretation of estimated associations in regression models.” Political Science Research and Methods (8)1: 1 – 13

Elwert, F., and Fabian T. Pfeffer. 2019. “The Future Strikes Back: Using Future Treatments to Detect and Reduce Hidden Bias.” Sociological Methods & Research: 1 – 38

Wodtke, Geoffrey T., Felix Elwert, and David J. Harding. 2016. “Neighborhood Effect Heterogeneity by Family Income and Developmental Period.” American Journal of Sociology 121(4):1168–1222.

Elwert, Felix and Christopher Winship. 2014. “Endogenous Selection Bias: The Problem of Conditioning on a Collider Variable.” Annual Review of Sociology40(1):31–53.

O’Malley, A. James, Felix Elwert, J. Niels Rosenquist, Alan M. Zaslavsky, and Nicholas A. Christakis. 2014. “Estimating Peer Effects in Longitudinal Dyadic Data Using Instrumental Variables.” Biometrics70(3):506–15.

Elwert, Felix. 2013. “Graphical Causal Models.” Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research Handbook of Causal Analysis for Social Research: 245–73.

Wrigley-Field, Elizabeth and Felix Elwert. 2014. “Mortality Deceleration and Mortality Selection: Three Unexpected Implications of a Simple Model.” Demography 51(1):51–71. PMCID 4559263.

Wodtke, G., Felix Elwert and David J. Harding. 2012. “Poor Families, Poor Neighborhoods: How Family Poverty Intensifies the Impact of Concentrated Disadvantage on High School Graduation.” PSC Research Report No. 12-776.

Wodtke, Geoffrey T., David J. Harding, and Felix Elwert. 2011. “Neighborhood Effects in Temporal Perspective.” American Sociological Review 76(5):713–36.

Sharkey, Patrick and Felix Elwert. 2011. “The Legacy of Disadvantage: Multigenerational Neighborhood Effects on Cognitive Ability.” American Journal of Sociology116(6):1934–81.

Elwert, Felix. 2010. “Effect Heterogeneity and Bias in Regression Models,” Heuristics, Probability: and Causality: A Tribute to Judea Pearl

Jin, Lei, Felix Elwert, Jeremy Freese, and Nicholas A. Christakis. 2010. “Preliminary Evidence Regarding the Hypothesis That the Sex Ratio at Sexual Maturity May Affect Longevity in Men.” Demography47(3):579–86.

Elwert, Felix and Nicholas A. Christakis. 2008. “Wives and Ex-Wives: A New Test for Homogamy Bias in the Widowhood Effect.” Demography 45(4):851–73.

Elwert, Felix and Nicholas A. Christakis. 2008. “The Effect of Widowhood on Mortality by the Causes of Death of Both Spouses.” American Journal of Public Health98(11):2092–98.

Elwert, Felix and Nicholas A. Christakis. 2006. “Widowhood and Race.” American Sociological Review71(1):16–41.