Suchergebnisse

"Social Science Experiments: A Hands-on Introduction is an accessible textbook for undergraduates. Its four objectives are to help readers to (1) become perceptive critics of social science claims and the evidence used to support them, (2) learn basic terminology used to describe experimental designs and the statistical analysis of experimental data, (3) design and conduct a small-scale randomized experiment in a manner that sheds light on a causal question while at the same time respecting ethical boundaries, and (4) appreciate the importance of research transparency in all phases of experimental design and analysis. Chapters draw on a wide array of social science experiments from fields such as political science, psychology, criminology, and health. The textbook assumes no prior background in statistics or programming, making it a perfect complement for a course in introductory statistics. Worked examples are written in the open-source software R. The exercises invite readers to work with publicly-available datasets from published studies. Solutions to the exercises appear at the back of the book. Further instruction in R is provided by an R Companion to this volume."--

Third parties have been a fixture in the American political landscape since the beginning of the two-party system. More than 300 of these groups have surfaced, but only a handful have made a real difference. Third-Party Matters: Politics, Presidents, and Third Parties in American History tells the intriguing stories of those 11 parties, starting with the antislavery Liberty Party of 1840.||The parties deemed worthy of inclusion were selected because they met at least one of three criteria. They were spoilers who changed the outcome of an election, they had an important influence on government

Third parties have been a fixture in the American political landscape since the beginning of the two-party system. More than 300 of these groups have surfaced, but only a handful have made a real difference. Third-Party Matters: Politics, Presidents, and Third Parties in American History tells the intriguing stories of those 11 parties, starting with the antislavery Liberty Party of 1840. The parties deemed worthy of inclusion were selected because they met at least one of three criteria. They were spoilers who changed the outcome of an election, they had an important influence on government.

The vast literature on party identification has gradually become bogged down by disputes about how to interpret observational data. This paper proposes the use of experimental designs to shed light on the responsiveness of party identification to short term forces such as retrospective performance evaluations. Examples of recent field experiments are used to illustrate two types of experimental designs and the assumptions on which they rest.

I compare the price elasticity of economic and political preferences. My central hypothesis is that willingness to pay, whether expressed verbally or through cash transactions, is more price-elastic for economic consumption goods than for public goods. I find that increases in price greatly diminish the proportion of people willing to pay for consumer goods, such as housing or hardback books; whereas the proportion willing to pay more in taxes to support a public good, such as environmental protection or shelter for the homeless, is much less responsive to changes in price. I conclude by discussing the theoretical and political implications of willingness to pay for public and private goods.

Two-stage least squares (2SLS) is a statistical procedure that is used to correct for simultaneity bias and errors in variables. When applied to certain kinds of models, however, 2SLS is itself susceptible to bias as a result of random and nonrandom measurement error in the data. Using data from the 1980 Center for Political Studies panel, I show how different assumptions about measurement error produce radically different impressions about the reciprocal relationship between party identification and presidential performance evaluations.