gov1000-list November 2002

gov1000-list@lists.fas.harvard.edu

17 participants
82 discussions

by dkane＠latte.harvard.edu

Note that some people (read: Mostly me and Tiffany once) have sent some messages to the old mailing list by mistake. They go there but they don't get sent out. You can see them at: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/pipermail/gov1760-l/2002-November/date.html#start and look at the last 5 messages. If you have advice for Tiffany or an interest in lunch with me or questions about the paper, then please respond. Dave -- David Kane Lecturer In Government 617-563-0122 dkane(a)latte.harvard.edu

21 years, 4 months

Questions

by Phillip Y. Lipscy

1d: When you say "something like 'democratic' and 'republican'", i take this to mean changing 0 to -1? Is there a different interpretation? 1f: When we set up the factor variable, should we just use year - ie 1910, 1920, etc.; or should we use numbers like t = 1, 2, 3, 4...? 1d implies there won't be a difference, but just to make sure. I recall trying this for the midterm and getting really weird values when I used the year numbers, esp. for the interaction effect. Is the ordinal ranking all that matters? 2b: What exactly are you looking for here? The question seems to answer itself in the parentheses. I'm not sure I understand the wording. Thanks, Phillip. ------------------------------------------------- Phillip Y. Lipscy Perkins Hall Room #129 35 Oxford Street Cambridge, MA 02138 (617)493-4893 lipscy(a)fas.harvard.edu Ph.D. Candidate Harvard University, FAS, Department of Government -------------------------------------------------

21 years, 4 months

Re: [gov1000-list] question re: 1(a)

by Anna Lorien Nelson

Thanks, Nirmala. This does help. But what exactly is this "pooled" data that we rbind together? Is it *only* the data from 1920 and 1918, 1930 and 1928, ..., 1990 and 1988, or should we somehow be including the data from 1912, 1914, 1916, 1922, ..., 1992? If we should be including the 2, 4, 6 -ending years (Ryan's earlier email implied that maybe we should), I have no idea how to go about this. Anna > By "pooling" I think he means that we combine all the years rather than > finding the incumbency effect for each election year. In other words, > instead of running the regression within the loop that merges current year > with lag year, rbind the merged data into a single dataframe within the > loop and then run the regression after you have the "pooled" data for all > the > years. I hope this helps..... > > - Nirmala

21 years, 4 months

renaming dataframe columns

by Anna Lorien Nelson

I load and clean my data for problem 1(a), and then I'd like to rename the columns on my data frame. (Just to keep things sorted out, I've made a data frame that contains only the columns of data I need for the regression, without extra info like incumbency in years -8 or party of the winner in years -0.) So, I'd really like to name my columns, to remember what is what. But the command isn't working. > clean <- clean.data(hdata) > dim(clean) [1] 1250 7 > names(clean) <- c ("year", "state", "district", "dpct0", "dpct8", "dwin8", "incumb0") Error in "names<-.default"(*tmp*, value = c("year", "state", "district", : names attribute must be the same length as the vector I guess I don't have to name my columns, but I'd like to figure out why this isn't working. It seems like it should, since the dimensions have 7 columns and I've concatenated 7 names. Any thoughts? Anna -- Anna Lorien Nelson Department of Government, Harvard University alnelson(a)fas.harvard.edu

21 years, 4 months

Re: [gov1000-list] question re: 1(a) (fwd)

by Nirmala Ravishankar

Anna, I think the "right" should actually be "left," i.e. the dependent variable is percentage of Dem votes in years ending in "0," while the independent variables are the percentage of Dem votes and party of the winner two years prior and incumbency in the current year. By "pooling" I think he means that we combine all the years rather than finding the incumbency effect for each election year. In other words, instead of running the regression within the loop that merges current year with lag year, rbind the merged data into a single dataframe within the loop and then run the regression after you have the "pooled" data for all the years. I hope this helps..... - Nirmala On Sat, 30 Nov 2002, Anna Lorien Nelson wrote: > In 1(a), you ask for a model where the *right-hand* side variable is a vector > of percentage Dem. votes for districts in 1910, 1920, ..., 1990. > > But looking at the equation on the first page, don't you want the right-hand > side variable to be a vector of percentage Dem. votes in 1918, 1928, ..., 1988 > in order to estimate a vector of predicted values for percentage Dem. vote in > 1910, 1920, ..., 1990 as the *left-hand* side, dependent variable? > > Or am I confused? Just trying to set up the problem correctly. > > Anna > > -- > Anna Lorien Nelson > Department of Government, > Harvard University > alnelson(a)fas.harvard.edu > > _______________________________________________ > gov1000-list mailing list > gov1000-list(a)fas.harvard.edu > http://www.fas.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/gov1000-list >

21 years, 4 months

what "pooling" means in 1(a)

by Anna Lorien Nelson

Do I understand correctly that by "pooling" the data in problem 1, we will not actually be using the data from years ending in 2, 4, or 6 at all? (or should I be using the data from these years too -- if so, where?) Anna -- Anna Lorien Nelson Department of Government, Harvard University alnelson(a)fas.harvard.edu

21 years, 4 months

question re: 1(a)

by Anna Lorien Nelson

In 1(a), you ask for a model where the *right-hand* side variable is a vector of percentage Dem. votes for districts in 1910, 1920, ..., 1990. But looking at the equation on the first page, don't you want the right-hand side variable to be a vector of percentage Dem. votes in 1918, 1928, ..., 1988 in order to estimate a vector of predicted values for percentage Dem. vote in 1910, 1920, ..., 1990 as the *left-hand* side, dependent variable? Or am I confused? Just trying to set up the problem correctly. Anna -- Anna Lorien Nelson Department of Government, Harvard University alnelson(a)fas.harvard.edu

21 years, 4 months

midterms

by dkane＠latte.harvard.edu

Tao has kindly posted many of the midterms here. http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~gov1000/Students_Midterms_Online/ Although I have not finalized the grades yet, I have no problem in saying that the midterms by "pink" and "dog" are both excellent. If, for some reason, you failed to provide Tao with a pdf file of your exam, please do so at your earliest convenience. Dave -- David Kane Lecturer In Government 617-563-0122 dkane(a)latte.harvard.edu Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

21 years, 4 months

interesting link (nothing to do with the homework!)

by dkane＠latte.harvard.edu

I thought that this was an interesting (albeit, somewhat dated) link. http://falcon.cc.ukans.edu/~schrodt/pols907/00.professionalpapers.html Note the mention of Gary King's students (read: you). Alas, the link within it does not seem to work. Dave -- David Kane Lecturer In Government 617-563-0122 dkane(a)latte.harvard.edu Please avoid sending me Word or PowerPoint attachments. See http://www.fsf.org/philosophy/no-word-attachments.html

21 years, 4 months

midterm answers might help approach HW 7

by Anna Lorien Nelson

Dear Dave, The first challenge I'm finding with homework 7 is that I have no idea if I'm approaching problems 1 and 2 correctly. When you commented earlier this week that "more than one person was unable to do *any* empirical analysis on the midterm," it struck fear in the hearts of more than one student! :-) For those who did not tackle the midterm properly, I am concerned that they will make similar, unwitting mistakes with the homework. Just as each homework has built on the last one (e.g., requiring correct answers from homework 4 to make sense of homework 5), so it seems that homework 7 builds on the midterm. Would you consider you posting a correct answer to the midterm, so the class can learn from it to more fruitfully approach homework 7? Thanks, Anna P.S. I realize grading our midterms takes time. But if you could just pick one or two disks with good results to post, that could be a big help. -- Anna Lorien Nelson Department of Government, Harvard University alnelson(a)fas.harvard.edu

21 years, 4 months

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gov1000-list November 2002