gov3009-l December 2008

gov3009-l@lists.fas.harvard.edu

1 participants
2 discussions

Amanda Cox on "Open problems in NYT Graphics"

by Justin Grimmer

Dear Applied Statistics Workshop, Please join us this Wednesday, December 10th, when Amanda Cox (who is with the New York Times) when she will present "Open Problems in NYT Graphics". Amanda provided the following abstract: The New York Times graphics department is a group of about 30 journalists who make the charts, maps and diagrams for the print and online versions of the paper. This talk is a (completely unofficial) guide to some of the problems the department faces on an ongoing basis, including how to represent uncertainty in an accessible way, and how to move beyond something I call "Here is some data:" toward something closer to inference. The applied statistics workshop meets at 12 noon in room K-354, CGIS-Knafel (1737 Cambridge St) with a light lunch. Presentations start at 1215 pm and usually end around 130 pm. As always, all are welcome and please email me with any questions. Cheers Justin Grimmer

15 years, 4 months

Peress on "Estimating Proposal and Status Quo Locations Using Voting and Cosponsorship Data"

by Justin Grimmer

Dear Applied Statistics Community, Please join us this Wednesday, December 3rd when Michael Peress, Department of Political Science, University of Rochester, will be presenting, "Estimating Proposal and Status Quo Locations Using Voting and Cosponsorship Data". Michael provided the following abstract, Theories of lawmaking generate predictions for the policy outcome as a function of the status quo. These theories are difficult to test because existing ideal point estimation techniques do not recover the locations of proposals or status quos. Instead, such techniques only recover cutpoints. This limitation has meant that existing tests of theories of lawmaking have been indirect in nature. I propose a method of directly measuring ideal points, proposal locations, and status quo locations on the same multidimensional scale, by employing a combination of voting data, bill and amendment cosponsorship data, and the congressional record. My approach works as follows. First, we can identify the locations of legislative proposals (bills and amendments) on the same scale as voter ideal points by jointly scaling voting and cosponsorship data. Next, we can identify the location of the final form of the bill using the location of last successful amendment (which we already know). If the bill was not amended, then the final form is simply the original bill location. Finally, we can identify the status quo point by employing the cutpoint we get from scaling the final passage vote. To implement this procedure, I automatically coded data on the congressional record available from www.thomas.gov. I apply this approach to recent sessions of the U.S. Senate, and use it to test the implications of competing theories of lawmaking. A copy of the paper is available here: http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~jgrimmer/StatusQuos.pdf The applied statistics workshop meets at 12 noon in room K-354, CGIS-Knafel (1737 Cambridge St) with a light lunch. Presentations start at 1215 pm and usually end around 130 pm. As always, all are welcome and please email me with any questions. Cheers Justin Grimmer

15 years, 4 months

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gov3009-l December 2008