My current interests are in interpretable machine learning, discrete choice modeling, and network effects.
Below are a few selected publications that highlight my latest work. For a full and up-to-date list, feel free to check out my Google Scholar profile.
Standard Discrete Choice Models (DCMs) assume that unobserved effects that influence decision-making are independently and identically distributed among individuals. When unobserved effects are spatially correlated, the independence assumption does not hold, leading to biased standard errors and potentially biased parameter estimates. This paper proposes an interpretable Hierarchical Nearest Neig…
Citation: Villarraga, D. F., & Daziano, R. A. (2025). Hierarchical Nearest Neighbor Gaussian Process models for discrete choice: Mode choice in New York City. Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 191, 103132.
Full TextWe introduce a novel model architecture that incorporates network effects into discrete choice problems, achieving higher predictive performance than standard discrete choice models while offering greater interpretability than general-purpose flexible model classes. Econometric discrete choice models aid in studying individual decision-making, where agents select the option with the highest rewar…
Citation: Villarraga, D. F., & Daziano, R. A. (2025). Designing Graph Convolutional Neural Networks for Discrete Choice with Network Effects. arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.09786.
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