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This paper presents a method for inferring the distribution of voter ideal points on a single dimension from individual-level binary choice data. The statistical model and estimation technique draw heavily on the psychometric literature on test taking and, in particular, on the work of Bock and Aitkin (1981) and are similar to several recent methods of estimating legislative ideal points (Londregan 2000; Bailey 2001). I present Monte Carlo results validating the method. The method is then applied to determining the partisan and ideological basis of support for presidential candidates in 1992 and to U.S. mass and congressional partisan realignment on abortion policy since 1973.

We welcome the opportunity to respond to Wand's careful and detailed analysis of our paper (Lewis and Schultz 2003). With the discipline's increasing inclination to move toward fully structural strategic choice models (e.g., Signorino 1999; Morton 1999), the issues that Wand raises are important to consider, as they bear on crucial questions of model construction and interpretation. Moreover, his work has allowed us to consider more carefully the properties of an estimator that we are in the process of applying to actual data.

Researchers often use as dependent variables quantities estimated from auxiliary data sets. Estimated dependent variable (EDV) models arise, for example, in studies where counties or states are the units of analysis and the dependent variable is an estimated mean, proportion, or regression coefficient. Scholars fitting EDV models have generally recognized that variation in the sampling variance of the observations on the dependent variable will induce heteroscedasticity. We show that the most common approach to this problem, weighted least squares, will usually lead to inefficient estimates and underestimated standard errors. In many cases, OLS with White's or Efron heteroscedastic consistent standard errors yields better results. We also suggest two simple alternative FGLS approaches that are more efficient and yield consistent standard error estimates. Finally, we apply the various alternative estimators to a replication of Cohen's (2004) cross-national study of presidential approval.

We develop an empirical estimator directly from an extensive-form crisis bargaining game with incomplete information and discuss its features and limitations. The estimator makes it possible to draw inferences about states' payoffs from observational data on crisis outcomes while remaining faithful to the theorized strategic and informational structure. We compare this estimator to one based on a symmetric information version of the same game, using the quantal response equilibrium proposed in this context by Signorino (1999,American Political Science Review93:279–298). We then address issues of identification that arise in trying to learn about actors' utilities by observing their play of a strategic game. In general, a number of identifying restrictions are needed in order to pin down the distribution of payoffs and the effects of covariates on those payoffs.

The directional and proximity models offer dramatically different theories for how voters make decisions and fundamentally divergent views of the supposed microfoundations on which vast bodies of literature in theoretical rational choice and empirical political behavior have been built. We demonstrate here that the empirical tests in the large and growing body of literature on this subject amount to theoretical debates about which statistical assumption is right. The key statistical assumptions have not been empirically tested and, indeed, turn out to be effectively untestable with existing methods and data. Unfortunately, these assumptions are also crucial since changing them leads to different conclusions about voter decision processes.

Term limits advocates argued that their reform would make state legislative campaigns more competitive and less expensive, and limited early studies suggested that it may have achieved those goals. But now, with evidence from more than a decade of experience with reform, we re-examine the effects of terms limits on electoral competitiveness and campaign spending in California Assembly elections. We find that while term limits initially suppressed campaign spending, they did not check its growth for long. Today, California's state legislative elections are as expensive in real dollars as they have ever been. In terms of electoral competitiveness, state legislative incumbents are in no more danger of losing their seats today than they were in the pre-term limits days of the late 1980s. Furthermore, open-seat races are not any more competitive under term limits than before them; however, we do find a modest, but significant, decline in incumbents' average winning margin since the imposition of term limits. But since term limits have made fewer incumbents eligible to run for office, this incumbency advantage helps fewer people than it once did. Yet, for the most part, rather than being supplanted by citizen-legislators, career politicians have simply adapted to the constraints imposed by term limits. Adapted from the source document.