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Modeling Dynamic Preferences: A Bayesian Robust Dynamic Latent Ordered Probit Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Daniel Stegmueller
Daniel Stegmueller*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK e-mail: mail@daniel-stegmueller.com
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Abstract

Much politico-economic research on individuals' preferences is cross-sectional and does not model dynamic aspects of preference or attitude formation. I present a Bayesian dynamic panel model, which facilitates the analysis of repeated preferences using individual-level panel data. My model deals with three problems. First, I explicitly include feedback from previous preferences taking into account that available survey measures of preferences are categorical. Second, I model individuals' initial conditions when entering the panel as resulting from observed and unobserved individual attributes. Third, I capture unobserved individual preference heterogeneity both via standard parametric random effects and a robust alternative based on Bayesian nonparametric density estimation. I use this model to analyze the impact of income and wealth on preferences for government intervention using the British Household Panel Study from 1991 to 2007.

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Type
Research Article
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Political Analysis , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , Summer 2013 , pp. 314 - 333
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Copyright © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

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