We will convene for the Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) next week on Wednesday (9/19).
The speaker is
Aaron Kaufman
(Harvard PhD candidate; job market candidate) who will be presenting
his paper "An Automated Method to Estimate Survey Question Bias" (paper
link here).
Where: CGIS Knafel Building, Room K354 (see
this link for directions).
When: Wednesday, September 19th at 12 noon - 1:30 pm.
Abstract: Many
survey researchers are interested in gauging public support for
government policy, but there is strong evidence that a question’s
wording affects responses to it. I develop the first automated and
scalable method to predict the magnitude and direction of the partisan
bias a question’s wording may impose on survey responses, and show using
a series of survey experiments that it outperforms public opinion
scholars in predicting that bias. Using a novel data set of almost one
million survey questions from 1997 to 2017, I then examine trends in
partisan survey question biases over time. I find that while questions
related to economic issues are relatively unbiased, questions related to
Barack Obama become steadily more conservatively biased from 2008 to
2017. Questions related to abortion and immigration are generally
conservative, while questions related to healthcare and education are
consistently liberal. Substantively, my results suggest that
measurements of American public opinion are systematically biased; I
discuss the implications of this result for democratic representation.
Methodologically, this paper opens up new opportunities for studying
ideology from text, and for improving survey methodology and measurement
in public opinion.
All are welcome! Lunch is provided!
Best,
Connor Jerzak
Applied Statistics Workshop -- Graduate Student Coordinator