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  5. Privacy and Data-Based Research

Journal of Economic Perspectives

ISSN 0895-3309 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7965 (Online)

Privacy and Data-Based Research

  • Ori Heffetz
  • Katrina Ligett
Journal of Economic Perspectives
vol. 28, no. 2, Spring 2014
(pp. 75–98)
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Abstract

What can we, as users of microdata, formally guarantee to the individuals (or firms) in our dataset, regarding their privacy? We retell a few stories, well-known in data-privacy circles, of failed anonymization attempts in publicly released datasets. We then provide a mostly informal introduction to several ideas from the literature on differential privacy, an active literature in computer science that studies formal approaches to preserving the privacy of individuals in statistical databases. We apply some of its insights to situations routinely faced by applied economists, emphasizing big-data contexts.

Citation

Heffetz, Ori, and Katrina Ligett. 2014. "Privacy and Data-Based Research." Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28 (2): 75–98. DOI: 10.1257/jep.28.2.75

JEL Classification

  • C55 Modeling with Large Data Sets
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