Hostname: page-component-5db58dd55d-ggg9q Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-05-25T20:24:12.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Complex Measures and Sociotropic Voting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Jonathan A. Cowden  and
Thomas Hartley
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Social scientists often employ measures that tap correlated factors. This article explores the effects of these complex measures on OLS estimators and specifies some of the conditions under which researchers should or should not include them in a regression.

The derivations allow us to shed some new light on the debate about sociotropic and pocketbook voting. In a classic piece, Kramer (1983) criticized inferences about economic interests that were based on cross-sectional data. He also argued that aggregate data could be used to assess the net effects of both sociotropic interest and self-interest on the vote. In this article, by using a complex judgment measure of sociotropic and self-interested economic perceptions and a redundant measure of self-interested perceptions, we are able to produce a consistent estimate of the sociotropic effect with aggregate data. An estimate of the self-interest effect is also available, though it may not have any desirable asymptotic properties.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 4 , 1992 , pp. 75 - 95
Copyright
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1993 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Achen, Christopher H. 1975. “Mass Political Attitudes and the Survey Response.” American Political Science Review 69: 1218–31.Google Scholar
Achen, Christopher H. 1985. “Proxy Variables and Incorrect Signs on Regression Coefficients.” Political Methodology 34: 299–316.Google Scholar
Aigner, D. J. 1974. “MSE Dominance of Least Squares with Errors-of-Observation.” Journal of Econometrics 2: 365–72.Google Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, and Rosenthal, Howard. 1989. “Partisan Cycles in Congressional Elections and the Macroeconomy.” American Political Science Review 83: 373–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence. 1983. “Whites’ Opposition to Busing: Symbolic Racism or Realistic Group Conflict?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 45: 1196–1210.Google Scholar
Bobo, Lawrence. 1988. “Group Conflict, Prejudice, and the Paradox of Contemporary Radical Attitudes,” In Eliminating Racism: Profiles in Controversy, ed. Katz, Phyllis and Taylor, Dalmas, 85–114. New York and London: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bollen, Kenneth. 1989. Structural Equations with Latent Variables. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Carmines, Edward G., and Zeller, Richard A. 1979. Reliability and Validity Assessment. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Carmines, Edward G., and Stimson, James A. 1989. Issue Evolution: Race and the Transformation of American Politics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Gaertner, Samuel L., and Dovidio, John F. 1986. “The Aversive Form of Racism.” In Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism: Theory and Research, ed. Gaertner, Samuel L. and Dovidio, John F., 61–89. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Geddes, Barbara, and Zaller, John. 1989. “Sources of Popular Support for Authoritarian Regimes.” American Journal of Political Science 33: 319–47.Google Scholar
Green, Donald Philip. 1988. “On the Dimensionality of Public Sentiment Toward Partisan and Ideological Groups.” American Journal of Political Science 32: 758–80.Google Scholar
Hayduk, Leslie A. 1988. Structural Equations Modeling with LISREL: Essentials and Advances. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Kiewiet, D. Roderick, and Udell, Michael. 1991. “Back to the Beginning: A Reconsideration of the Electoral Effects of Economic Fluctuations in Light of Revised Estimates of Income Change and Unemployment.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Political Science Association, Chicago.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R., and Roderick Kiewiet, D. 1979. “Economic Discontent and Political Behavior: The Role of Personal Grievances and Collective Economic Judgments in Congressional Voting.” American Journal of Political Science 23: 495–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kinder, Donald R., and Roderick Kiewiet, D. 1981. “Sociotropic Politics: The American Case.” British Journal of Political Science 11: 129–61.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R., and Sears, David O. 1981. “Prejudice and Politics: Symbolic Racism versus Racial Threats to the Good Life.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40: 414–31.Google Scholar
Kinder, Donald R., Adams, Gordon S., and Gronke, Paul W. 1990. “Economics and Politics in the 1984 American Presidential Election.” American Journal of Political Science 33: 491–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Gerald. 1971. “Short-Term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior, 1896-1964.” American Political Science Review 65: 131–43.Google Scholar
Kramer, Gerald. 1983. “The Ecological Fallacy Revisited: Aggregate- versus Individual-level Findings on Economics and Elections, and Sociotropic Voting.” American Political Science Review 77: 92–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lau, Richard R., Sears, David O., and Jessor, Tom. 1990. “Fact or Artifact Revisited: Survey Instrument Effects and Pocketbook Politics.” Political Behavior 12: 217–42.Google Scholar
Leamer, Edward E. 1983. “Let's Take the Con Out of Econometrics.” American Economic Review 73: 31–43.Google Scholar
Long, J. Scott. 1983. Confirmatory Factor Analysis. Beverly Hills: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
McCallum, B. T. 1972. “Relative Asymptotic Bias from Errors of Omission and Measurement.” Econometrica 40: 757–58.Google Scholar
McClosky, Herbert, and Brill, Alida. 1983. Dimensions of Tolerance. New York: Russell Sage.Google Scholar
McConahay, J. B. 1986. “Modern Racism, Ambivalence, and the Modern Racism Scale.” In Prejudice, Discrimination, and Racism: Theory and Research, ed. Gaertner, Samuel L. and Dovidio, John F., 91–125. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Markus, Gregory B. 1988. ‘The Impact of Personal and National Economic Conditions on the Presidential Vote: A Pooled Cross-Sectional Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 32: 137–54.Google Scholar
Rivers, Douglas. N.d. “Macroeconomics and Micropolitics: A Solution to the Kramer Problem.” American Political Science Review. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Robinson, W. S. 1950. “Ecological Correlations and the Behavior of Individuals.” American Sociological Review 15: 351–57.Google Scholar
Sears, David O. 1988. “Symbolic Racism.” In Eliminating Racism: Profiles in Controversy, ed. Katz, Phyllis A. and Taylor, Dalmas A., 53–84. New York: Plenum Press.Google Scholar
Sears, David O., and Lau, Richard R. 1983. “Inducing Apparently Self-Interested Political Preferences.” American Journal of Political Science 27: 222–52.Google Scholar
Sniderman, Paul M., and Tetlock, Philip E. 1986. “Symbolic Racism: Problems of Motive Attribution and Political Analysis.” Journal of Social Issues 42: 129–50.Google Scholar
White, Halbert. 1980. “A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity.” Econometrica 48: 817–38.Google Scholar