Ecological inference in the social sciences

Glynn, Adam; Wakefield, Jon

doi:10.1016/j.stamet.2009.09.003

Cited by 31 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…Good overviews of the approaches proposed for that problem, and of their limitations due to the ecological fallacy, can be found in Cleave, Brown, and Payne (); King (); Freedman (); Freedman et al. (, ); and Glynn and Wakefield ().…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological Inference and Spatial Variation of Individual Behavior: National Divide and Elections inCatalonia

Puig

Ginebra

2014

Geographical Analysis

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When in geography one reconstructs individual behavior starting from aggregated data through ecological inference, a crucial aspect is the spatial variation of individual behavior. Basic ecological inference methods treat areas as if they were all exchangeable, which in geographical applications is questionable due to the existence of contextual effects that relate to area location and induce spatial dependence. Here that assumption is avoided by basing ecological inference on a model that simultaneously does a cluster analysis, grouping together areas with similar individual behavior, and an ecological inference analysis in each cluster, estimating the individual behavior in the areas of each group. That allows one to capture most of the spatial dependence and summarize the individual behavior at a local level through the behavior estimated for each cluster. This approach is used to investigate vote switching in Catalonia, where voters split across a national allegiance divide on top of the ideological divide. That leads to Catalans having a lot of options to choose from, and to them voting differently depending on whether the election is for the Catalan parliament or for the Spanish parliament. To investigate that, the results in the two most recent pairs of such elections are analyzed by simultaneously clustering areas based on the similarity of their vote and vote switch patterns, and estimating one vote switch pattern for each cluster. As a result, Catalonia is partitioned into four clusters that have a strong spatial structure, with all the areas in the same cluster having similar demographic composition. The estimated vote switch patterns are quite different across clusters but very similar across pairs of elections, and they help assess how the differential voter turnout and the strategic dual vote effects vary in space.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological Inference and Spatial Variation of Individual Behavior: National Divide and Elections inCatalonia

Puig

Ginebra

2014

Geographical Analysis

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“…Let Z denote additional conditioning covariates (typically demographic variables) which can a¤ect both treatment as well as potential outcomes. 2 The ecological inference literature also considers the partial identi…cation problem when combining aggregate and individual-level data (e.g., Glynn and Wake…eld (2010)). The two-sample IV literature has considered instrumental variables models in which the outcome and the endogenous variables are observed in separate datasets (e.g., Angrist and Krueger (1992), Inoue and Solon (2010)).…”

Section: The Modelling Framework and Assumptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Identifying Treatment Effects Under Data Combination

2014

Econometrica

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We consider the identi…cation of counterfactual distributions and treatment e¤ects when the outcome variables and conditioning covariates are observed in separate datasets. Under the standard selection on observables assumption, the counterfactual distributions and treatment e¤ect parameters are no longer point identi…ed. However, applying the classical monotone rearrangement inequality, we derive sharp bounds on the counterfactual distributions and policy parameters of interest.

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“…The latter refers to the fact that relationships observed at higher order aggregates do not necessary hold for lower level units, in particular the individual voter. A series of approaches have been proposed for ecological inference (see Brown and Payne 1986; Duncan and Davis 1953; Goodman 1953; King 1997; King, Rosen, and Tanner 1999; Rosen et al 2001; Thomsen 1987; Wakefield 2004), for a recent overview see Glynn and Wakefield (2010). More recently, it has been argued that the combination of aggregate data and individual data may lead to improved results.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combining Aggregate Data and Exit Polls for the Estimation of Voter Transitions

Klima¹,

Schlesinger²,

Thurner

et al. 2017

Sociological Methods & Research

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Our objective is the estimation of voter transitions between two consecutive parliamentary elections. Usually, such analyses have been based either on individual survey data or on aggregated data. To move beyond these methods and their respective problems, we propose the application of so-called hybrid models, which combine aggregate and individual data. We use a Bayesian approach and extend a multinomial-Dirichlet model proposed in the ecological inference literature. Our new hybrid model has been implemented in the R-package eiwild (= Ecological Inference with individual-level data). Based on extensive simulations, we are able to show that our new estimator exhibits a very good estimation performance in many realistic scenarios. Application case is the voter transition between the Bavarian Regional election and the German federal elections 2013 in the Metropolitan City of Munich. Our approach is also applicable to other areas of electoral research, market research, and epidemiology.

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Ecological inference in the social sciences

Cited by 31 publications

References 51 publications

Ecological Inference and Spatial Variation of Individual Behavior: National Divide and Elections inCatalonia

Ecological Inference and Spatial Variation of Individual Behavior: National Divide and Elections inCatalonia

Identifying Treatment Effects Under Data Combination

Combining Aggregate Data and Exit Polls for the Estimation of Voter Transitions

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