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Two-Stage Estimation of Non-Recursive Choice Models Alvarez, R. Michael Glasgow, Garrett Uploaded 03-02-1999 Keywords two-stage estimation probit endogeneity two-stage probit least squares two-stage conditional maximum likelihood Abstract Questions of causation are important issues in empirical research on political behavior. Most of the discussion of the econometric problems associated with multi-equation models with reciprocal causation has focused on models with continuous dependent variables (e.g. Markus and Converse 1979; Page and Jones 1979). Yet many models of political behavior involve discrete or dichotomous dependent variables; this paper describes two techniques which can consistently estimate reciprocal relationships between dichotomous and continuous dependent variables. The first, two-stage probit least squares (2SPLS), is very similar to two-stage instrumental variable techniques. The second, two-stage conditional maximum likelihood (2SCML), may overcome problems associated with 2SPLS, but has not been used in the political science literature. First, we demonstrate the potential pitfalls of ignoring the problems of reciprocal causation in non-recursive choice models. Then, we show the properties of both techniques using Monte Carlo simulations: both the two-stage models perform well in large samples, but in small samples the 2SPLS model has superior statistical properties. However, the 2SCML model offers an explicit statistical test for endogeneity. Last, we apply these techniques to an empirical example which focuses on the relationship between voter preferences in a presidential election and the voter's uncertainty about the policy positions taken by the candidates. This example demonstrates the importance of these techniques for political science research.

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Heterogeneity in the Impact of Issues on Vote Choice Glasgow, Garrett Uploaded 04-18-1999 Keywords random parameters logit heterogeneity issue salience Abstract There is a great deal of diversity in the issues than members of the American electorate are concerned with. It seems logical that these different concerns will lead voters to evaluate political candidates in different ways when voting. Unfortunately, the models currently employed by political scientists ignore the possibility of heterogeneity in the weights that individuals place on issues when voting. In order to create a tractable model of vote choice, most researchers assume that the weights placed on issues are homogeneous across voters. Estimating such a model tells us if an issue was salient to the electorate on average, but gives us no information about heterogeneity in the use of the issue. Allowing for heterogeneity in issue weights allows for a much more complete picture of the impact of issues on vote choice. I assume that issue weights are distributed among voters by some known probability distribution, and estimate the parameters of that distribution. This assumption leads to random parameters logit. I present the results of a random parameters logit model for the 1996 presidential election, and compare these results to those from a conditional logit model with the homogeneity assumption. I show that random parameters logit contains all of the information that models that assume homogeneity do, plus I uncover evidence of heterogeneity in the weights placed on issues by voters.

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The MAP-B Program with Macro and Micro Applications Hinich, Melvin J. Ghobarah, Hazen Uploaded 07-11-1999 Keywords spatial maps maximum likelihood resampling Abstract We present and apply a general methodology for obtaining a multi-dimensional map of the 'political space' in a given country based on the rating by members of the public of a set candidates or parties. This methodology produces spatial ideology maps of the stimuli (candidates or parties) and the distribution of ideal points of the public. Earlier versions of this methodology, have been applied to American presidential elections (e.g. Enelow and Hinich, 1984:169-216), and to elections in Taiwan (Lin, Chu and Hinich, in World Politics, 1996), Germany (Pappi and Eckstein, in Public Choice, 1998), Ukraine (Hinich, Khmelko and Ordeshook, in Post-Soviet Affairs, 1999), and Russia (Myagkov and Ordeshook, in Public Choice, 1998) among others. This methodology allows for the specification of a valence dimension to capture non-policy characteristics of parties and candidates. The new version (MapB) is capable of recovering the distribution of the estimates of the candidate/party positions in the ideological space through a modified resampling technique. Moreover, it is available as a standalone user-friendly program for the PC/Windows platform.

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The `Turnout Twist' in Japanese Elections Horiuchi, Yusaku Uploaded 09-07-1999 Keywords voter turnout Japanese elections local elections multiple imputation random-effect model simulation Abstract In the United States, as well as in most other democracies, national elections usually attract more votes than local elections. In Japan, they attract more votes in large municipalities but attract less votes in small municipalities. This paper attempts to explain such a puzzling turnout pattern, which is defined as the ``turnout twist''. The random-effect model estimation and the post-estimation simulation find that the most important variable explaining the turnout twist is the voting-age population per seat. The simulation analysis shows that if this variable did not have any significant effect, national elections would attract more votes than local elections in all municipalities. Since this variable itself and its effect on turnout are largely determined by the disproportional apportionment of seats in both national and local elections, the restrictive regulations to mobilizational activities, and the minimal roles played by political parties in mobilizing votes under the multimember constituency system, the paper concludes that the puzzling turnout twist observed in Japanese elections is a product of Japan's unique institutional arrangements.

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Detecting United States Mediation Styles in the Middle East, 1979-1998 Schrodt, Philip A. Uploaded 03-04-1999 Keywords event data mediation Middle East time series hidden Markov models Abstract This research is part of the "Multiple Paths to Knowledge Project" sponsored by the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, Rice University, and the Program in Foreign Policy Decision Making, Texas A&M University. The paper deals with the problem of determining whether the mediation styles used by four U.S. Secretaries of State -- George Schultz, James Baker, Warren Christopher and Madeline Albright -- are sufficiently distinct that they can be detected in event data. The mediation domain is the Israel-Palestinian conflict from April 1979 to December 1998, the event data are coded from the Reuters news service reports using the WEIS event coding scheme, and the classification technique is hidden Markov models. The models are estimated for each of the four Secretaries based on 16 randomly chosen 32-events sequences of USA>ISR and USA>PAL events during the term of the Secretary. Each month in the data set is then assigned to one of the four Secretarial styles based on the best-fitting model. The models differentiate the mediation styles quite distinctly and this method of detecting styles yields quite different results when applied to ISR-PAL data or random data. The "Baker" and "Albright" styles are most distinctive; the "Schultz" style is least; both results are consistent with many qualitative characterizations of these periods. A series of t-tests is then done on Goldstein-scaled scores to determine whether the mediation styles translate into statistically distinct interactions in the ISR>USA, ISR>PAL, PAL>USA and PAL>ISR dyads. While there are a number of statistically-significant differences when the full sample is used, these may be due simply to the overall changes Israel-Palestinian relations over the course of the time series. When tests are done on months that are out-of-term -- in other words, where the style of one Secretary is being employed during the term of another -- few statistically-significant differences are found, though there is someindication of a lag of a month or so between the change in style and the behavioral response. It appears that the effects of the differing styles are not captured by changes in aggregated data, possibly because these scales force behavior into a single conflict-cooperation dimension. Consistent with other papers in the "Multiple Paths to Knowledge" project, the paper contains commentary on how the research project was actually done, as well as the conventional presentation of results. The file includes the papers in Postscript and PDF formats, the event data (Levant, April 1979 to December 1998) used in the analysis, the C source code for estimating the hidden Markov models. This paper was presented at the International Studies Association meetings, Washington, 16-21 February 1999

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Economic Voting: Enlightened Self-Interest and Economic Reference Nagler, Jonathan De Boef, Suzanna Uploaded 04-18-1999 Keywords elections economic voting sociotropic voting Abstract This research tests a new theoretical perspective on economic voting. There is a longstanding debate on whether voters are: `sociotropic' voters', i.e., basing their vote on the state of the national economy; or `pocketbook' voters, i.e., basing their vote on the state of their own finances (Kiewiet 1983, Kinder and Kiewiet 1979). We believe that this debate can be reduced to asking what information voters use to form expectations about their own pocketbooks in the future. We argue that voters use information about the economic fortunes of their own economic reference group, rather than the national economy, to form expectations about the impact of government on their own economic fortunes. This allows voters to evaluate both the economic competence of incumbents, as well as the distributive tendencies of incumbents. Allowing voters to evaluate distributional consequences of alternative parties in power is consistent with research showing that left and right parties pursue different economic policies with different distributional consequences (Hibbs 1977, Alesina, Roubini and Cohen 1997}. Thus it allows for a theoretically richer model of voter behavior; and allows us to synthesize the distinct literatures on sociotropic voting and political business cycles. This work is motivated in part by the divergence of wages for different groups of workers since the 1970s. As variance in economic performance increases across groups, we would expect to see more reliance on economic reference groups and less on the national economy as an indicator of the incumbent's likelihood of providing favorable voter-specific economic performance in the future. We examine presidential approval over time across different demographic groups of voters, and show that those approval ratings are influenced both by national economic performance and by group economic performance measured by the change in the group's mean hourly wage.

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Modeling Heterogeneity in Duration Models Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M. Zorn, Christopher Uploaded 07-11-1999 Keywords heterogeneity survival models split-population variance correction frailty random effects Abstract As increasing numbers of political scientists have turned to event history models to analyze duration data, there has been growing awareness of the issue of heterogeneity: instances in which subpopulations in the data vary in ways not captured by the systematic components of standard duration models. We discuss the general issue of heterogeneity, and offer techniques for dealing with it under various conditions. One special case of heterogeneity arises when the population under study consists of one or more subpopulations which will never experience the event of interest. Split-population, or "cure" models, account for this heterogeneity by permitting separate analysis of the determinants of whether an event will occur and the timing of that event, using mixture distributions. We use the split-population model to reveal additional insights into the strategies of political action committees' allocation decisions, and compare split-population and standard duration models of Congressional responses to Supreme Court decisions. We then go on to explore the general issue of heterogeneity in survival data by considering two broad classes of models for dealing with the lack of independence among failure times: variance correction models and "frailty" (or random effects) duration models. The former address heterogeneity by adjusting the variance matrix of the estimates to allow for correct inference in the presence of that heterogeneity, while the latter approach treats heterogeneity as an unobservable, random, multiplicative factor acting on the baseline hazard function. Both types of models allow us to deal with heterogeneity that results, for example, from correlation at multiple levels of data, or from repeated events within units of analysis. We illustrate these models using data on international conflicts. In sum, we explore the issue of heterogeneity in event history models from a variety of perspectives, using a host of examples from contemporary political science. Our techniques and findings will therefore be of substantial interest to both political methodologists and others engaged in empirical work across a range of subfields.

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A Panel Probit Analysis of Campaign Contributions and Roll Call Votes Wawro, Gregory Uploaded 09-07-1999 Keywords campaign finance panel data methods logit probit random effects GMM estimators Abstract Political scientists have long been concerned with the effects of campaign contributions on roll call voting. However, methodological problems have hampered attempts to assess the degree to which contributions affect voting. One of the key problems is that it is difficult to untangle the effect of contributions from the effect of a member's predisposition to vote one way or another. That is, political action committees (PACs) contribute to members of Congress who are likely to vote the way the PACs favor even in the absence of contributions. A PAC donation to a friendly member might be misconstrued as causing a member to vote a particular way, when in reality the member would have voted that way to begin with. It is therefore crucial to account for a member's propensity to vote in a particular way in order to assess the influence of contributions. One way that studies have done this is to use ideological ratings developed by interest groups. This approach is problematic, however, because the ratings are built from roll call votes and thus will introduce bias if campaign contributions affect the votes used to compute the ratings. In order to circumvent the problem of accounting for voting predispositions, I use panel data methods which, unfortunately, have seen almost no application in political science. These methods enable us to account for individual specific effects which are difficult or impossible to measure, such as the predisposition to vote for or against a particular type of legislation. To employ these methods, I build panels of roll call votes on legislation that business and labor groups have indicated are important for their interests. Using panel data estimators, I determine the effects of contributions from corporate and labor PACs on the probability of voting ``aye'' or ``nay'', while accounting for members' propensities to vote in particular directions. I find that contributions have minimal to no effects on roll call votes, while short-term factors including monthly unemployment and support for the president in the district have substantial effects.

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The Initiative as a Catalyst for Policy Change Boehmke, Frederick Uploaded 03-08-1999 Keywords Initiative political theory event history analysis Abstract In this paper I develop and test a theoretical model of the role that the initiative process plays in shaping policy outcomes. My model builds on Gerber (1996) by introducing uncertainty over the median voter's ideal point and by allowing the interest group to lobby the legislature before a potential initiative is proposed. Successful lobbying may occur due to the uncertainty over the outcome of an initiative. Besides the possibility of lobbying, the results differ from Gerber's since proposal of an initiative is an equilibrium outcome for certain parameter values. I then turn to an event history analysis of state lottery adoptions to test the model's prediction that the initiative process should make it more likely that a state adopt a lottery. This is related to work by Berry and Berry (1990). The empirical hypothesis is found to be supported in the post 1980 period, which I believe is a result of the well-documented resurgence in its use after California's Proposition 13 in 1978. An indirect effect of the initiative in non-initiative states is also found through the importance of neighbors' adoptions. This confirms the view that initiative states are often policy leaders, which I argue may lead to less effective policy choices since they have less information about how to implement then.

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Time Series Models for Compositional Data Brandt, Patrick T. Monroe, Burt L. Williams, John T. Uploaded 07-09-1999 Keywords compositional data VAR time series analysis bootstrap Monte Carlo simulation macropartisanship Abstract Who gets what? When? How? Data that tell us who got what are compositional data - they are proportions that sum to one. Political science is, unsurprisingly, replete with examples: vote shares, seat shares, budget shares, survey marginals, and so on. Data that also tell us when and how are compositional time series data. Standard time series models are often used, to detrimental consequence, to model compositional time series. We examine methods for modeling compositional data generating processes using vector autoregression (VAR). We then use such a method to reanalyze aggregate partisanship in the United States.

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Poisson-Normal Dynamic Generalized Linear Mixed Models of U.S. House Campaign Contributions Mebane, Walter R. Wand, Jonathan Uploaded 07-11-1999 Keywords GLMM MCEM count model heterogeneity FEC campaign contributions campaign finance U.S. House of Representatives 1984 election Abstract We develop generalized linear mixed models to analyze itemized contributions to U.S. House campaigns. Our basic model is a system of Poisson processes that have means that are log-linear functions of normally distributed random effects. Our model permits multiple random effects, including serially correlated effects. The mixed model specification involves an integration over the random effects that is analytically intractable. When there is only one, serially independent random effect, the model may be estimated using quadrature to evaluate the integral. With multiple random effects, quadrature is infeasible but the model may be estimated using the Monte Carlo EM (MCEM) algorithm proposed by McCulloch (1997). We illustrate these various estimation methods. The system we analyze includes contributions to Democratic and Republican candidates from different sources, including individuals and PACs. We estimate dynamic effects both within and across contributions series. The cross-series dynamics measure how contributions to one candidate react to contributions to the other. The cross-series dynamics also measure how contributions to a candidate from one source can mobilize contributions from other sources. We use a combination of observed variables and random effects to test the hypothesis of dynamic mobilization against several hypotheses that imply constant differences between candidates and between districts. One such hypothesis is that some candidates received persistently higher contributions from all sources because of PAC endorsements. Another is that some candidates are simply better at raising money than others. We also test how national expectations about presidential election outcomes affect contributions. We apply our model to itemized contributions data for open seat races in the 1984 election.

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Campaign Timing and Vote Determinants Peterson, David A.M. Uploaded 09-07-1999 Keywords Campaign effects hierarchical models random coefficient Markov chain Monte Carlo Abstract Questions about the role of campaigns in making different considerations more important for voters have been central to the study of political behavior for fifty years (Lazardsfeld et al 1948). The basic concern is does the information presented during the campaign alter how voters evaluate and choose between candidates. This paper develops a random coefficient or hierarchical logit model to analyze the 1984 NES Continuous Monitoring Survey. The specification treats the effect of partisanship, policy distance and candidate character traits as a function of the campaign timing. Of the theories tested in this paper, the attitude strength model best predicts the changes in vote determinants across the campaign.

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Tests of the Validity of Complete-Unit Analysis in Surveys Subject to Item Nonresponse or Attrition Sherman, Robert P. Uploaded 03-12-1999 Keywords MCAR MAR item nonresponse attrition odds-ratios Abstract nalysts of cross-sectional or panel surveys often base inferences about relationships between variables on complete units, excluding units that are incomplete due to item nonresponse or attrition. This practice is justifiable if exclusion is ignorable in an appropriate sense. This paper characterizes certain types of ignorable exclusion in surveys subject to item nonresponse and develops tests based on these characterizations. These tests are applied to data from several National Election Study (NES) panels and evidence is found of violations of assumptions of ignorable exclusion. Characterizations and tests of ignorable attrition in standard panel surveys are also presented.

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Logistic Regression in Rare Events Data (revised) King, Gary Zeng, Langche Uploaded 07-09-1999 Keywords rare events logit logistic regression binary dependent variables bias correction case-control choice-based endogenous selection selection bias Abstract This paper is for the \r\nmethods conference; it \r\nis a revised version of \r\na paper that was \r\npreviously sent to the \r\npaper server.

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The Robustness of Statistical Abstractions: A Look Under the Hood of Statistical Models and Software Altman, Micah McDonald, Michael P. Uploaded 07-13-1999 Keywords computational abstractions numerical accuracy benchmark replication random numbers Abstract Models rest upon abstractions that are accepted, prima facie, as routine and robust. In the course of model development and estimation, political methodologists routinely assume the reliability of the computational that abstractions they use. All computational abstractions can fall short in their implementation; some because their implementation is complicated and the precision of computation is limited, others because they assume knowledge of solutions to mathematical problems that are inherently difficult to solve. We measure the accuracy of statistical abstractions as implemented in statistical packages popular among political methodologists, such as Gauss, Stata, SST and Excel. We evaluate the use of these abstractions in the context of evaluating complex statistical procedures, such as Jonathan Nagler's (1994) scobit estimator and Gary King's (1997) solution to ecological inference. We find that widely used implementations of common statistical abstractions are at times prone to error. We show that errors in inference in complex models can result from failures to understand the implementation and limitations of computation. We then offer tools to test statistical results to improve the accuracy of many statistical implementations and to test the implementation-robustness of many statistical results. We conclude by offering recommendations to help users of statistical software avoid the pitfalls of computational abstractions and offer guidelines to aid replication

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What's Your Temperature? Thermometer Ratings and Political Analysis Berinsky, Adam Winter, Nicholas Uploaded 09-09-1999 Keywords thermometer rating measurement NES group evaluations interpersonal comparability Abstract This paper considers the measurement properties of the NES’ feeling thermometer ratings of political groups and individuals. We explore the degree to which the thermometer contains interval-level information, the degree to which t-scores are interpersonally comparable, and discuss the measure’s use in political analysis. nwinter@umich.edu

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Respondent Uncertainty of Candidate Issue Positions and Its Effects on Estimates of Issue Salience Glasgow, Garrett Uploaded 03-23-1999 Keywords issue salience uncertainty coefficient bias spatial models Abstract (not transcribed)

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Learning in Campaigns: A Policy Moderating Model of Individual Contributions to House Candidates Wand, Jonathan Mebane, Walter R. Uploaded 04-18-1999 Keywords FEC campaign contributions campaign finance policy moderation GLM generalized linear model negative binomial time series bootstrap U.S. House of Representatives 1984 election Abstract We propose a policy moderating model of individual campaign contributions to House campaigns. Based on a model that implies moderating behavior by voters, we hypothesize that individuals use expectations about the Presidential election outcome when deciding whether to donate money to a House candidate. Using daily campaign contributions data drawn from the FEC Itemized Contributions files for 1984, we estimate a generalized linear model for count data with serially correlated errors. We expand on previous empirical applications of this type of model by comparing standard errors derived from a sandwich estimator to confidence intervals produced by a nonparametric bootstrap.

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Estimation and Inference by Bayesian Simulation: an on-line resource for social scientists Jackman, Simon Uploaded 08-30-1999 Keywords Markov chain Monte Carlo Bayesian statistics how-to BUGS ordinal probit time series Abstract http://tamarama.stanford.edu/mcmc a Web-based on-line resource for Markov chain Monte Carlo, specifically tailored for social scientists. MCMC is probably the most exciting development in statistics in the last ten years. But to date, most applications of MCMC methods are in bio-statistics, making it difficult for social scientists to fully grasp the power of MCMC methods. In providing this on-line resource I aim to overcome this deficiency, helping to put MCMC in the reach of social scientists. The resource comprises: (*) a set of worked examples (*) data and programs (*) links to other relevant web sites (*) notes and papers At the meetings in Atlanta, I will present two of the worked examples, which are part of this document: (*) Cosponsor: computing auxiliary quantities from MCMC output (e.g., percent correctly predicted in a logit/probit model of legislative behavior; cf Herron 1999). (*) Delegation: estimating a time-series model for ordinal data (e.g., changes to the U.S. president's discretionary power in trade policy, 1890-1990; cf Epstein and O'Halloran 1996).

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The Influence of the Initiative Process on Interest Groups and Lobbying Techniques Boehmke, Frederick Uploaded 09-22-1999 Keywords Initiative direct democracy survey analysis interest groups lobbying selection bias Abstract I use survey data on interest groups and their activities drawn from four state populations to test hypotheses about the implications of direct democracy for the characteristics and strategic choices of interest groups. I use this data to test predictions about direct democracy's effect for group populations, confirming previous work (Boehmke 1999b) and extending it by exploring more detailed characteristics such as membership and resources. I then link these characteristics to lobbying techniques to test if the initiative process has an impact at the group level. As expected, groups involved in initiative campaigns tend to accentuate outside lobbying strategies, but even groups not currently involved in initiatives are influenced by the possibility of its use. This is because the initiative process alters the characteristics that can be effectively used when attempting to influence policy. The analysis makes use of a technique to correct for heterogeneous response rates across group types. By gathering information about a high percentage of an additional, smaller sample, I am able to correct for this response rate differential through a weighting procedure. The correction is found to have a substantial effect on the results: its absence would leave the researcher to conclude that the initiative plays little role in state interest group activities. This data will also be used to test and correct for possible sample selection bias.

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Statistical Analysis of Finite Choice Models in Extensive Form Signorino, Curtis S. Uploaded 03-23-1999 Keywords random utility discrete choice strategic equilibrium finite choice game theory Abstract (not transcribed)

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Economic Perceptions and Information in a Heterogeneous Electorate Willette, Jennifer R. Uploaded 04-18-1999 Keywords economic voting ordered probit economic perceptions Abstract he relationship between vote choice and voter evaluations of national economic conditions is well established. There is little attention paid to the formation of those economic evaluations, however. This oversight is important since we know that economic perceptions are not direct reflections of objective economic conditions. To address this issue, I develop a model of economic perceptions which considers that the impact of media information on economic evaluations will differ based upon the `information capability' of the individual. I use 1992 American National Election Survey data to estimate an ordered probit model of economic perceptions allowing the impact of personal economic information and media information to vary based upon the respondents information capability. I test the hypothesis that individuals with higher information capability will give greater weight to media information when evaluating the economy. As information capability decreases, respondents will weight personal economic conditions more heavily.

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Selection Bias in a Model of Candidate Entry Decisions Kanthak, Kristen Morton, Becky Gerber, Elisabeth R. Uploaded 07-13-1999 Keywords selection bias Poisson estimation population uncertainty Abstract In recent years, several states have changed or considered changing their laws regulating how political parties nominate candidates for office. We focus on one potentially important consequence of these changes: How do primary election laws affect candidate entry decisions? We have constructed and solved a formal model of individual candidate behavior in which potential candidates can choose to: 1) enter the electoral competition as major party candidates; 2) enter as minor party candidates; 3) enter as independents; or 4) not enter. Based on our analysis of the model, we hypothesize that the expected utility of each choice is a function, in part, of a state's primary election laws. We test our hypotheses with data on candidate choice from recent US Congressional elections. Estimation of our model is complicated, however, by the fact that we do not observe the choices of potential candidates who choose not to enter (i.e., the sample is truncated) and the observed dependent variable (i.e., candidate choices to run as major party, minor party, or independent candidates) is measured as a discrete, unordered polychotomous choice. We employ a two-stage Heckman (1979)-type estimation procedure that utilizes a Poisson framework for estimating candidate entry rates. We find that our estimates of the effects of electoral institutions on the partisan affiliation decisions of independent candidates are unaffected by sample selection. Our estimates of the partisan affiliation decisions of minor party candidates, however, change when we account for non-random sample selection.

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Populists in the Pluralist Heaven: How Direct Democracy Reduces Bias in Interest Representation Boehmke, Frederick Uploaded 10-15-1999 Keywords Initiative direct democracy interest groups lobbying fixed effects representation Abstract This paper explores the effect of direct democracy on state interest group populations, providing an empirical test of a formal model of how access to the initiative process affects group formation and activities (Boehmke 1999), which predicts that more groups will mobilize and become active in initiative states. This prediction is supported by the findings in this paper, which also suggest that the effect of the initiative on group mobilizations has increased from the late 1970s to 1990. The prediction that groups that face a greater collective action problem are influenced more by the initiative is also confirmed since government and social groups are among those most affected. Counterfactual analysis indicates that the initiative process makes a state's interest group population more diverse, though the gains are decreasing from 1975 to 1990.

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Multiculturalism, Diversity, and Prejudice Branton, Regina P. Jones, Bradford S. Uploaded 03-27-1999 Keywords random coefficients multilevel analysis multiculturalism racial politics Abstract In this paper, we consider the relationship between racial and ethnic diversity and individuals' assessments of racial and ethnic groups measured on several public opinion items. To examine these issues, we merge 1992 National Election Study data with U.S. Census Bureau demographic data measured at the congressional district level. We then develop an index of diversity that is based on the distribution of racial and ethnic groups in the congressional district. To examine the relationship between diversity and individual-level attitudes toward racial and ethnic groups, we estimate a series of models treating the response variable as a function of both individual-level attributes and district-level attributes. This approach allows us to assess, among other things, if diversity is associated with more positive or negative evaluations of racial and ethnic groups. The models herein are all estimated as mixed effects models to account for the clustering of observations within congressional districts. We find that diversity is associated with group affect and individuals' placement on policy issues; however, in contrast to some of the extant literature, we find that racial and ethnic diversity is nonlinearly associated with group affect: extremely low and extremely high levels of racial and ethnic diversity are associated with lower racial and ethnic group evaluations, while districts that are moderately diverse are associated with higher evaluations. This result also holds for some of the policy items examined. Specifically, we find that support for government assistance to blacks, and to a lesser extent, support for affirmative action, exhibits this nonlinearity with regard to racial and ethnic diversity. We also find this pattern for individuals' assessment of welfare recipients.

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Does Size Matter? Exploring the Small Sample Properties of Maximum Likelihood Estimation Hart, Jr., Robert A. Clark, David H. Uploaded 04-20-1999 Keywords small samples ML Type II errors bootstrap Abstract The last two decades have witnessed an explosion in the use of computationally intensive methodologies in the social sciences as computer technology has advanced. Among these empirical methods are Maximum Likelihood (ML) procedures. ML estimators possess a variety of desirable qualities, perhaps most prominent of which is the asymptotic efficiency of the standard errors. However, the behavior of the estimators in general, of the estimates of the standard errors in particular, and thus of inferential hypothesis tests are uncertain in small sample analyses. In political science research, small samples are routinely the subject of empirical investigation using ML methods, yet little is known regarding what effect sample size has on a researcher's ability to draw inferences This paper explores the behavior of ML estimates in probit models across differing sample sizes and with varying numbers of independent variables in Monte Carlo simulations. Our experimental results allow us to conclude that: a) the risk of making Type I errors does not change appreciably as sample size descends; b) the risk of making Type II errors increases dramatically in smaller samples and as the number of regressors increases.

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Deliberation and Voting at the Federal Convention of 1787 Londregan, John B. Uploaded 07-13-1999 Keywords Scaling Deliberation Legislation Abstract This paper examines the deliberative voting of the Federal Convention of 1787, and contrasts this type of voting with the more commonly observed position taking behavior that characterizes most legislatures. The analysis constructs an empirical model that incorporates proposal valence, which at the federal convention corresponded to proposals' contribution to the ``ratifiability" of the constitution, and uses information contained in the authorship of proposals to overcome the identification problems that plague empirical spatial models of voting. The estimated issue positions of the state delegations reveal a significant cleavage on an two issue dimensions; one corresponding to the balance between the states and the central government and the other dealing with the extent of the powers granted to the federal governmen

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Strategic Voting in Germany. Evidence employing King's Ecological Inference Gschwend, Thomas Uploaded 10-20-1999 Keywords Germany election voting EI Abstract Germany provides an especially interesting case for the study of strategic voting because they use two-ballot system on Election Day. Voters are encouraged to split their votes using different strategies. This is called emph{sophisticated voting}. I disentangle different types of sophisticated voting that have been mixed in the literature so far: On the first vote there is emph{tactical} voting, and on the second vote there is emph{loan} voting. Therefore, I focus particularly on ticket-splitting patterns. The data set I use contains official election results of first and second votes for all West-German districts from the federal election of 1998. To obtain estimates that determine quantity of straight and split-ticket voting between political parties I employ King's method of Ecological Inference (EI). Using these estimates as independent variables in linear regression models, I show that tactical and loan voters secured the representation of FDP and the Greens in the German Parliament.

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The Two-Level Inference Problem and the Confirmation of Theories Clarke, Kevin A. Uploaded 04-05-1999 Keywords testing inference Vuong Bayes Neyman-Pearson Abstract In this paper, I argue that the hypothetico-deductive model of theory testing creates a two-level inference problem for quantitative studies of world politics. Theory testing under this model requires an inference from the data to the derived hypothesis and then a second inference from the derived hypothesis to the theory. The logic of this inferential structure denies the possibility of theory testing in a falsificationist setting and paradoxically permits only falsification in a confirmationist setting (whether naive or Bayesian). Defeating the two-level problem requires statements that assert if and only if the theory is true is the hypothesis true and if and only if the hypothesis is true will the data follow an expected pattern. The only hope for making such statements lies in comparing our theories with specific rivals. I point out that this move is consistent with "fallen" Bayesianism and the major tenet of post-positivist thought. Finally, I suggest two tests that allow this kind of comparison and, through an example, demonstrate that these abstract ideas have real consequences for the practice of quantitative research in world politics.

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Representation and Salient Issues: Legislator Responsiveness to the Service Constituency Bennett, Sherry L. Smith, Renee M. Uploaded 04-21-1999 Keywords service constituency opinion activation U.S. trade policy ordered probit IV estimation Abstract ormal models of the supply of public policy and of information transmission between lobbyists and legislators imply that the preferences of both organized and informed, but unorganized, interests influence legislators' vote choices. Denzau and Munger (1986) refer to these citizens as a legislator's service constituency. In this paper, we provide argument and evidence to show that the concept of a service constituency is crucial to theoretical explanations and empirical investigations of a legislator's responsiveness to constituent demands on salient issues. We also provide theory and evidence to account for the process by which unorganized citizens become part of a service constituency. Our argument emphasizes the effects of interest group competition on information accessibility and opinion activation for diffuse, unorganized citizens. Our empirical evidence provides strong support for our hypotheses about opinion activation and the effects of the service constituency on legislative behavio

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The Political Economy of Non-Tariff Trade Barriers: A Test of the Veto Players Theory of Policy Change Kotin, Daniel Uploaded 07-13-1999 Keywords cross-sectional time-series missing data Abstract This paper tests George Tsebelis's (1995) veto players model of policy stability, as applied to international trade policy. The veto players model argues that policy change is more difficult with the number of political actors that can veto such change, their ideological polarization, and (for collective veto players) their cohesion. I test this model's ability to predict the variation in non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to international trade for 16 industrial democracies, over the period 1981-94. Such barriers may be becoming increasingly attractive to states seeking to maintain trade protection in the face of secular declines in tariff rates. In a regression model controlling for economic factors and other domestic political influences on NTBs, such as politicians' trade policy preferences, minority government, and constituency pressures, I find support for Tsebelis's theory: Governments in the sample that are more polarized on the trade policy dimension are less able to change NTB policy. This finding holds despite the presence of a significant amount of missing data on the dependent variable, which consists of first differences taken across missing years, according to an alternative model in which the missing NTB levels are imputed via interpolation, and from which the first differences are then computed. Although more NTB data is needed to verify them, these preliminary results add to a growing body of literature finding empirical support for the veto players theory.

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Getting the Odds Right: Casino Gaming Diffusion, the Initiative Process and Expected Voter Support Boehmke, Frederick Uploaded 10-27-1999 Keywords Initiative direct democracy interest groups lobbying event history casino gaming formal model Abstract In this paper I develop and test a formal model of the role that the initiative process plays in shaping policy outcomes. By introducing uncertainty over the median voter's ideal point, I show that the possibility of proposing an initiative makes it cheaper for an interest group to change policy, both through the initiative process and by using contributions to convince the legislature to change policy. By also allowing groups to use information drawn from neighboring states' adoptions to estimate the probability an initiative would pass, I show that policy diffusion should function primarily as information diffusion between initiative states. The predictions of the model are then tested through an event history analysis of state casino gaming legalizations. The initiative process is found to be a positive and significant predictor of adoption and its effect is increased by voter liberalism. There is strong support for the informational approach to diffusion with a positive flow between initiative states and none from or to non-initiative states.

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Signals, Models, and Congressional Overrides of the Supreme Court Zorn, Christopher Hettinger, Virginia Uploaded 04-05-1999 Keywords event history models split-population duration models Congress Supreme Court statutory decisions overrides Abstract Sparked by interest in game-theoretic representations of the separation of powers, empirical work examining congressional overrides of Supreme Court statutory decisions has burgeoned in recent years. Much of this work has been hampered, however, by the relative rarity of such events; as has long been noted, congressional attention to the Court is limited, and most Court decisions represent the last word on statutory interpretation. With this fact foremost in our minds, we examine empirically a number of theories regarding such reversals. We apply a split-population duration model to the survival of Supreme Court statutory interpretation decisions. This approach allows us to separate the factors which lead to the event itself (i.e., the presence or absence of an override in a particular case) from those which influence the timing of the event. We find that case-specific factors relating to the salience of a case are an important influence in the incidence of overrides, while Congress- and Court-specific political influences dominate the timing at which those overrides occur. By separating the incidence and timing of overrides, our results yield a more accurate and nuanced understanding of this aspect of the separation of powers system.

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Fractional Integration Methods in Political Science Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M. Uploaded 05-02-1999 Keywords Fractional integration fractional cointegration congressional approval Abstract Controversies in researching political time series often revolve around the best characterization of the series, i.e., whether a series is stationary or integrated. By using a fractional integration approach, one can avoid this controversy. Fractionally integrated series are mean-reverting, but decay at different rates than a stationary series. Theoretical reasons may also lead one to expect a fractionally integrated series. Estimation of the d parameter in an ARFIMA (p, d, q) model is no longer difficult and multivariate extensions are proving useful. Using fractionally integrated methods can lead to substantive and methodological insights about political processes. We estimate d for congressional approval and economic expectations data from Durr, Gilmour, and Wolbrecht (1997) and test for fractional cointegration.

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Ecological inference reversed: Estimating aggregate features of voter ideal-point distributions from individual-level data Lewis, Jeffrey B. Uploaded 07-13-1999 Keywords none submitted Abstract In the last decade a great deal of progress has been made in estimating spatial models of legislative roll-call voting. There are now several well-known and effective methods of estimating the ideal points of legislators from their roll-call votes. Similar progress has not been made in the empirical modeling of the distribution of preferences in the electorate. Progress has been slower, not because the question is less important, but because of limitations of data and a lack of tractable methods. In this paper, I describe the existing technologies for inferring ideal points. I then develop a method for recovering the relative means and variances of the voter ideal point distribution across two (or more) groups of voters from individual-level binary response data. I extend the model to multiple dimensions and describe tests for dimensionality and inter-group differences. I then present Monte Carlo results demonstrating the efficacy of the meth

36

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Estimation Of Electoral Disproportionality And Thresholds Via MCMC Kalandrakis, Anastassios Uploaded 11-03-1999 Keywords Electoral Disproportionality Electoral Thresholds Gibbs Sampling MCMC Metropolis Algorithm Abstract For statistical as well as political reasons -- some already identified in the literature -- measures of both electoral disproportionality and electoral thresholds are essential and must be combined in numerical summaries of electoral institutions. With few exceptions, none of these quantities can be reliably inferred directly from the provisions of the electoral law, thus impairing "large scale" comparative studies. Through the use of sampling based Bayes methods I am able to simultaneously estimate these two quantities from electoral returns. I apply the proposed procedure on 45 electoral systems in use over 216 elections to the national parliaments in the 15 countries of the European Union in the period 1945-1996. The resultant two-dimensional summary of electoral systems has several attractive properties in comparison to indices of disproportionality currently used in comparative politics.

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Testing for Interaction in Models with Binary Dependent Variables Berry, William D. Uploaded 04-08-1999 Keywords probit logit scobit interaction binary dependent variables Abstract Over the last decade, political scientists have proposed several strategies for testing hypotheses about interaction in models with binary dependent variables. I argue that these strategies are incomplete, and propose an alternative approach. Consistent with Nagler's (1991; 1994) and Frant's (1991) advice, this approach involves including multiplicative terms in probit, logit and scobit models to specify interaction. However, the information used to test the hypotheses about interaction depends on whether the dependent variable of conceptual interest is the observed dichotomous variable or a latent, unbounded, continuous variable which the observed dichotomy is assumed to measure. In the latter case, hypotheses about interaction are tested by examining directly the maximum likelihood estimates of the coefficients for the multiplicative terms. In the former situation, the propositions are tested by analyzing changes in the predicted probability that the observed dependent variable will equal one of its values associated with changing values of the independent variables.

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Suspension of the Rules in the House Committee Process Grant, J. Tobin Hasecke, Edward B. Uploaded 05-11-1999 Keywords congressional procedures legislative organizaiton event history Abstract Theories of legislative organization offer competing explanations for the existence and practice of committees in Congress. Not only should these theories explain how bills proceed through committees but also why some bills are considered on the floor without formal committee approval. This paper examines the suspension of the rules procedure, the most common means of considering legislation before formal approval by committees. Using data on every public bill that introduced to the House of Representatives during the 105th Congress, we estimate an event history model of the Speaker's use of suspension of the rules. We test the implications of majority dominant and party dominant theories of legislative organization. We find strong support for the party dominant but not for the majority dominant theory. This finding has implications both our understanding of suspension of the rules and of theories of legislative organization.

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Age-Period-Cohort Analysis with Noisy, Lumpy Data Brady, Henry E. Elms, Laurel Uploaded 07-14-1999 Keywords cohort analysis smoothing political participation Abstract We have developed several relatively simple methods for doing age-period-cohort analysis with noisy, lumpy data. The first method, using additional information from the Census, does not work well with our data constraints because the age composition of the population does not vary enough over relatively short periods of time. The second method, approximating APC surfaces with polynomial functions, smooths the data too much. This approach is very much a brute force curve-fitting exercise that makes a very general assumption about the functional form of the APC surface and then fits it to the data. However, a third technique we evaluate starts with a theoretically informed model of how APC effects operate for a given dependent variable. This method allows for hypothesis testing and a reasonable amount of smoothing, but probably does not smooth period effects enough. It also yields interesting results about age, period, and cohort effects. The last method we discuss briefly, combining the third technique with additional smoothing, needs more development but may improve our estimates.

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The In-and-Outers Revisited: Duration Analysis and Presidential Appointee Tenure Tomlinson, Andrew R. Anderson, William D. Uploaded 11-09-1999 Keywords presidency staff event history duration competing risks Abstract Much has been written about the "fraying" of the Presidential appointments system (NAPA, 1985), but little research has been conducted which takes advantage of recent advancements in event history modeling. The questions posed by many authors in this field focus on two variables -- the time someone spends in office (Joyce, 1990), and the reasons they give for leaving their job (Bonafede, 1987). Not only do event history models avoid the common pitfalls of using OLS to model temporal data (Box-Steffensmeier and Jones, 2000), but certain models allow the researcher to combine temporal data with categorical choice models. We run a simple version of a competing risks model to test the effects of theoretically-chosen covariates on the likelihood of presidential appointees leaving office at a given time. We find support for some hypotheses, specifically those dealing with stress related factors and financial pressures on staffer tenure.

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The Timing of Voting Decisions in Presidential Campaigns Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M. Kimball, David Uploaded 04-12-1999 Keywords heteroskedastic probit time of vote decision voting presidential elections 1988 election Abstract Voting analysts often make a distinction between "long-term" and "short-term" forces that influence the voting decision in presidential elections (Campbell et al. 1960). Long-term forces reflect information and considerations that are available to voter before the presidential campaign starts, such as party identification, demographic attributes, and the record each candidate has established previously in government. In contrast, short-term forces refer more specifically to the campaign. We posit that there is variation in the way voters integrate the long- and short-term forces into a voting decision. Furthermore, the long-term forces are smaller in number and thus easier for researchers to identify and measure. For example, much attention has been devoted to conceptualization and measurement of party identification. However, short-term forces are nearly infinite in number and are much harder to measure and link up to the voting decision. This means that voting models should perform well when predicting the choices of voters who are guided primarily by long-term forces. In contrast, voting models should not perform as well for citizens who are strongly influenced by short-term forces. In statistical terms, there will be heteroskedastic error variance in common vote models due to the differing influence of short- and long-term forces. We examine the variation among voters by using the standard NES question that asks citizens how long before the election they made their voting decisions and test our expectations using the heteroskedastic probit technique (Brehm and Alvarez 1995), which is like a standard probit model except that there is a separate equation to model the error variance (the errors in prediction). By using the timing of the vote decision to help model the error variance, we produce unbiased estimates and improve our ability to explain voting behavior and the impact of campaigns.

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Political Methodology - A Welcoming Discipline Beck, Nathaniel Uploaded 05-11-1999 Keywords political methodology history data collection econometrics psychometrics statistics Abstract This article discusses, from my own perspective, political methodology at the age of twenty five years. In particular, I look at the relationship of political methodology to other methodological subdisciplines and to statistics, focussing on the division of labor among the various methodological disciplines. I also briefly discuss some issues in data collection.

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Policies, Prototypes, and Presidential Approval Gronke, Paul Uploaded 08-20-1999 Keywords presidency presidential approval heteroskedasticity variance modeling uncertainty Abstract American presidents, like all democratic political leaders, rely on popular support in order to promote their political agenda, gain legislative victories, and succeed at the ballot box. Extant studies of approval, however, focus resolutely on aggregate values, while individual level determinants, and variation, have been ignored. This paper redresses this imbalance, and in doing so speaks to the outstanding questions in studies of presidential approval. Individual level presidential approval is a product of three dimensions of evaluation: prospective policy judgements (what are you going to do for me tomorrow?), retrospective assessments (what did you do for me yesterday?), and personality assessments (what kind of leader are you?). In addition, the model draws on new models of uncertainty in the survey response, testing the hypothesis that weaker partisan attachments and lower levels of chronic political information will lead to greater uncertainty about presidential performance. The model is tested using NES studies from 1980--1996. The overall performance is superior (predicting from 40-70% of the variance in individual scores), and the primary hypotheses are confirmed. Retrospective, but not prospective, judgements drive individual level presidential approval, thus challenging the ``bankers" model of approval, and personality assessments play a central role in approval. Finally, strong evidence is found of heteroskedasticity in the approval models, and political information, interest in the presidential contest, and strength of partisan attachments all lead to lower levels of uncertainty. Variations in the role played by party during the Reagan years, compared to the presidencies of Carter, Bush, and Clinton, suggest a complex interaction between partisan ties, presidential performance, and the personality of the particular individual occupying the oval office.

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A Spectral Analysis of Military Expenditures: Implications for Data and Theory Gerace, Michael P. Uploaded 11-13-1999 Keywords spectral analysis military expenditures defense economics arms race Abstract This paper employs spectral analysis on the military expenditures of 7 countries across two broad time periods. The countries are the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Japan and the periods are 1872-1913 and 1950-1991 (less Russia in the second period). Periodograms of the 13 military expenditure variables are estimated in order to evaluate the variance structure of each variable. This procedure is conducted on each variable in its trending form and after detrending (26 times in all). While the trend in the data accounts for most of the variance in the levels of the data, the importance of the trend and the length of the period defining the trend seem to be influenced by the presence of war in the data. Despite these differences, however, the trend remains the most important feature of the data. The detrended data indicate that numerous influences converge on military expenditures, as is indicated by the large number of periods with significant waves. The large number of periods in the data attest to the difficulty of estimating a parsimonious model in the time domain. The idea of extracting certain portions from the data to estimate relationships in the time domain is briefly explored.

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An Event Data Set for the Arabian/Persian Gulf Region 1979-1997 Schrodt, Philip A. Gerner, Deborah J. Uploaded 04-12-1999 Keywords event data Middle East Persian Gulf automated coding Abstract This paper discusses a WEIS-coded event data set covering the Arabian/Persian Gulf region (Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and the smaller Gulf states) for the period 15 April 1979 to 10 June 1997. The coded events cover international interactions among these states, as well as interactions with any other states or major international organizations. The data set is generated from Reuters news reports downloaded from the NEXIS data service and coded using the Kansas Event Data System (KEDS) machine-coding program. The paper begins with a review of the process of generating a machine-coded data set, including a discussion of software we have developed to partially automate the development of dictionaries to code new geographical regions. The Gulf data are coded using a standard set of verb phrases (rather than phrases specifically adapted to the Gulf) and an actors dictionary that has been augmented only with the actors identified by a utility program that examines the source texts for actors not already found in the KEDS dictionary. The Reuters reports generate 264,421 events when full stories are coded and 48,721 events when only lead sentences are coded. An examination of the time series that are generated when the events are aggregated by month using the Goldstein scale shows that they capture the major features of the behavior that we know to have occurred in the region. There is generally a high correlation (r > 0.75) between the series generated from lead-sentences and from full stories when the major actors of the region (Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and USA) are studied. An exception to this pattern is found in interactions involving a relatively minor actor, the United Arab Emirates. Here the full-story coding provides far more events than the lead-sentence coding and shows greater variance even for interactions between major actors. We expect this will also be the case for other small Gulf states, suggesting that full-story coding may be necessary for a complete analysis of these actors. Paper was presented a year ago at the International Studies Association, Minneapolis, 18 - 22 March 1998 The file includes the papers in Postscript and PDF formats. The data set has been updated through March, 1999 and is available at the KEDS project web site, http://www.ukans.edu/~keds.

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Logistic Regression in Rare Events Data King, Gary Zeng, Langche Uploaded 05-20-1999 Keywords rare events logit logistic regression binary dependent variables bias correction case-control choice-based endogenous selection selection bias Abstract Rare events are binary dependent variables with dozens to thousands of times fewer ones (events, such as wars, vetoes, cases of political activism, or epidemiological infections) than zeros (``nonevents''). In many literatures, rare events have proven difficult to explain and predict, a problem that seems to have at least two sources. First, popular statistical procedures, such as logistic regression, can sharply underestimate the probability of rare events. We recommend corrections that outperform existing methods and change the estimates of absolute and relative risks by as much as some estimated effects reported in the literature. Second, commonly used data collection strategies are grossly inefficient for rare events data. The fear of collecting data with too few events has led to data collections with huge numbers of observations but relatively few, and poorly measured, explanatory variables, such as in international conflict data with more than a quarter million dyads, only a few of which are at war. As it turns out, easy procedures exist for making valid inferences when sampling all available events (e.g., wars) and a tiny fraction of non-events (peace). This enables scholars to save as much as 99% of their (non-fixed) data collection costs, or to collect much more meaningful explanatory variables. We provide methods that link these two results, enabling both types of corrections to work simultaneously, and software that implements the methods developed.

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Measuring Voter Turnout in the National Election Studies Burden, Barry C. Uploaded 08-26-1999 Keywords voter turnout NES overreport response rates Abstract Though the overreport of voter turnout in the National Election Study (NES) is widely known, this paper documents that the bias has become increasingly severe. The gap between NES and official estimates of presidential election has more than doubled from 11 points in 1952 to 28 points 1996. This occurred because official voter turnout fell steadily from 1960 onward while NES turnout did not. In contrast, the bias in House election turnout is always smaller and has increased only marginally over time, mostly due to inflation in presidential election years. I find that worsening presidential turnout estimates are mostly the result of declining response rates rather than instrumentation, question wording changes, or other factors. Adjusting official turnout estimates to more accurately measure real turnout does not account for the growing gap. Rather, as more peripheral voters elude interviewers in recent years, the NES sample becomes more saturated with self-reported voters, thus inflating reported turnout. The paper concludes by calling for a reevaluation of the NES in the wake of these and other changes that have taken place.

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Public Opinion Shocks and Government Termination Martin, Lanny W. Uploaded 11-16-1999 Keywords government survival public opinion discrete-hazard model logit Abstract Abstract. The ability of a government to remain in power depends partially upon its vulnerability to unexpected changes occurring in the outside political environment. In this paper, I examine the relationship between government termination and changes in the electoral expectations of political parties in the legislature, as reflected by shifts in popular support for the government. I find that the decision to terminate the government is related in complex ways to changes in public opinion. Governments are more likely to collapse as certain members of the incumbent coalition expect to gain more ministerial portfolios, and in cases of minority government, when the opposition expects to gain more legislative seats. Further, I show that these effects increase with the approach of regularly-scheduled elections.

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Measuring the Relative Impact of Issues and the Economy in Democratic Elections Alvarez, R. Michael Nagler, Jonathan Willette, Jennifer R. Uploaded 01-12-1999 Keywords multinomial probit discrete choice multiparty elections multicandidate elections Canadian elections Abstract It is generally accepted that issues and economic outcomes influence elections. In this paper we analyze the relative importance of issues and the economy in Canadian elections. We estimate a model of the 1988 and 1993 Canadian elections in which we include voter evaluations of the parties on a variety of issues, and voter evaluations of the national economy and their personal finances. We demonstrate that it is possible to compare the effects of issues and the econocy on election outcomes. And we put this in the context of the impact of issues and elections in several other democracies. We show that even in elections where other factors are dominant, we can still see the impact of economic voting. And we argue that given the tenuous connection between the actions of elected officials and macroeconomic outcomes, this suggests that voters may be giving elected officials undue leeway in their non-economic policy-making functions.

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Policy, Personality, and Presidential Performance Aldrich, John Gronke, Paul Grynaviski, Jeff Uploaded 04-12-1999 Keywords Policy Personality and Presidential Performance Abstract The importance of personality and performance assessments for candidate evaluations and choice has been well established, most prominently in the work on presidential prototypes by Kinder and colleagues, and the social cognitive model of vote choice by Rahn and colleagues. This paper takes a revisionist look at the effect of personality assessments for understanding presidential elections. Most of the experimental and survey data were collected in a relatively brief period, particularly between 1980 and 1984. Among the unique aspects of the 1980s was the impact of the distinctive personality of Ronald Reagan, sometimes called the "teflon president," because of the degree to which the public admired him as an individual, regardless of political events. His persona therefore might reasonably be assumed to have uniquely influenced the times and thus the models and results. We examine this question primarily by replicating the Rahn, et al. models using the NES surveys from 1984 through 1996, allowing us to evaluate the structure and performance of presidential prototypes and their role in candidate assessments over a longer period of time and greater variety of candidates and presidents.