Research Catalog

Title

A solution to the ecological inference problem : reconstructing individual behavior from aggregate data / Gary King.

Author

King, Gary.

Publication

Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press, c1997.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xxii, 342 p. : ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

This book provides a solution to the ecological inference problem, which has plagued users of statistical methods for over 75 years: How can researchers reliably infer individual-level behavior from aggregate (ecological) data? In political science, this question arises when individual-level surveys are unavailable (for instance, local or comparative electoral politics), unreliable (racial politics), insufficient (political geography), or infeasible (political history). This ecological inference problem also confronts researchers in numerous areas of major significance in public policy, and other academic disciplines, ranging from epidemiology and marketing to sociology and quantitative history. Although many have attempted to make such cross-level inferences, scholars agree that all existing methods yield very inaccurate conclusions about the world. In this volume, Gary King lays out a unique - and reliable - solution to this venerable problem.

Uniform Title

Project Muse UPCC books

Subject

• Political statistics
• Inference

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [317]-336) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

pt. I. Introduction. 1. Qualitative Overview. 2. Formal Statement of the Problem -- pt. II. Catalog of Problems to Fix. 3. Aggregation Problems. 4. Non-Aggregation Problems -- pt. III. The Proposed Solution. 5. The Data: Generalizing the Method of Bounds. 6. The Model. 7. Preliminary Estimation. 8. Calculating Quantities of Interest. 9. Model Extensions -- pt. IV. Verification. 10. A Typical Application Described in Detail: Voter Registration by Race. 11. Robustness to Aggregation Bias: Poverty Status by Sex. 12. Estimation without Information: Black Registration in Kentucky. 13. Classic Ecological Inferences -- pt. V. Generalizations and Concluding Suggestions. 14. Non-Ecological Aggregation Problems. 15. Ecological Inference in Larger Tables. 16. A Concluding Checklist -- App. A. Proof That All Discrepancies Are Equivalent -- App. B. Parameter Bounds -- App. C. Conditional Posterior Distribution -- App. D. The Likelihood Function.

ISBN

• 0691012415 (alk. paper)
• 0691012407 (pbk. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^^96032986^

OCLC

• 35360509
• SCSB-10884654

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library