Aging Curves of Political Knowledge
Now, aging curves of political knowledge by cohort.
Topic
Social Science
A collection of 117 issues
Bias is in the Eyes of the Beholder
Randomly Redistricting More Efficiently
In a forthcoming article, Chen and Rodden estimate the effect of ‘Unintentional gerrymandering’ on the number of seats that go to a particular party. To do so, they pick a precinct at random, and then add (randomly chosen) adjacent precincts to it till the district is of a certain size
A Potential Source of Bias in Estimating the Impact of Televised Campaign Ads
Or When Treatment is Strategic, No-Intent-to-Treat Intent-to-Treat Effects can be biased
One popular strategy for estimating the impact of televised campaign ads is by exploiting ‘accidental spillover’ (see Huber and Arceneaux 2007). The identification strategy builds on the following facts: Ads on local television can only be targeted at the
Moving Away From the Main Opposing Party
Two things are often stated about American politics: political elites are increasingly polarized, and the issue positions of the masses haven't budged much. Assuming such to be the case, one expects the average distance between where partisans place themselves and where they place the ‘in-party’ (or the ‘out-party’
State of the Union
Over the past forty years, the proportion of respondents reporting at least one union member in the household has declined precipitously (Source: American National Election Studies).
union.time_union.time_.pdf5 KBdownload-circle
Interviewer Assessed Political Information
In the National Election Studies (NES), interviewers have been asked to rate respondents’ level of political information: “Respondent’s general level of information about politics and public affairs seemed — Very high, Fairly high, Average, Fairly low, Very low.” John Zaller, among others, has argued that these ratings measure political knowledge
Impact of Menu on Choices: Choosing What You Want Or Deciding What You Should Want
In Predictably Irrational, Dan Ariely discusses the clever (ex)-subscription menu of The Economist that purportedly manipulates people to subscribe to a pricier plan. In an experiment based on the menu, Ariely shows that addition of an item to the menu (that very few choose) can cause preference reversal over
Elite Lawyers!
(Based on data from the 111th Congress)
Law is the most popular degree at the Capitol Hill (it has been the case for a long time). Nearly 52% of the senators and 36% of congressional representatives have a degree in law. There are some differences across parties and across houses,
Does Children's Sex Cause Partisanship?
More women identify themselves as Democrats than as Republicans. The disparity is yet greater among single women. It is possible (perhaps even likely) that this difference in partisan identification is due to (perceived) policy positions of Republicans and Democrats.
Now let’s do a thought experiment: Imagine a couple about