Bradley Yam, Saybrook College '21

A Journey in Quantifying Moral Action

By Rashel Chipi

“In social science, one has to come up with ways to measure events because of the reproducibility of social events.” Bradley Yam conducted research in his “Religion and Politics” class and explored the manners in which moral issues affect how religious individuals donate politically.  Yam was inspired by literature that showed how religious institutions, such as churches, saw decreases in donations after moral scandals. His passion for his Christian faith led him to a project where he could explore the intersections of his own identity as both a religious person and an economics student. 

Through his research, Yam sought to mathematically explore how religious individuals “withdraw their financial support from political candidates who display moral failures.” Luckily, Yam was able to conduct his research during the coronavirus pandemic since his work focused on analyzing datasets. He mainly referenced the ARDA Religious Census Dataset, which utilizes regression discontinuities to, “look at the difference between how relatively more religious zip codes versus less religious zip codes respond to a specific event.” Rather than establishing a fixed plan for his research beforehand, Yam was more so concerned with improving his ability to implement the statistical methods such as synthetic controls and making proper causal inferences; Yam analyzed over 26 million rows of political donations data!

One of the interesting questions Yam encountered was, “How do you define what is religious and what is not?” This is especially difficult to define since there are statistically more secular people today than ever, who likely inherited some religious values from their preceding generations or society at large. Yam was adamant about exploring and delineating the limitations of his research. His research exclusively used data as the source of analysis, which can be limiting in concretely answering questions regarding religious affairs. Nonetheless, Yam’s research found that moral issues do not play a large role in how religious individuals donate politically, or are at least weighed out by other factors.

Yam was the editor in chief of The Yale Logos publication, which addresses important issues on campus from a Christian perspective. Writing for The Yale Logos has inspired Yam to explore publishing more broadly and to take classes such as the “Art of Editing.” As someone who is double majoring in Ethics, Politics, and Economics and Computer Science, Yam hopes to explore the intersections of the two disciplines and become a more analytical thinker as a result.

Yam also enjoys attending the climbing gym and participating in the club wrestling team. Community has been “integral to [his] experience at Yale.” For example, Yam is a member of the Yale Students for Christ, which is a ministry for students to reflect on their own growth and experiences at Yale. As an international student from Singapore, Yam is also a member of the Malaysian and Singaporean Association (MASA), which builds community in more informal settings such as “inviting each other to [their] houses and enjoying Southeast Asian food.” Yam’s passion for community and his faith has evidently shaped his time at Yale into a fulfilling experience.