Dear all,
Please join us for the Applied Statistics Workshop (Gov 3009) this
Wednesday, February 8 from 12.00 - 1.30 pm in CGIS Knafel Room 354. Rocio
Titiunik, Assistant Professor from the Department of Political Science at
the University of Michigan, will give a presentation entitled "Using
Regression Discontinuity to Uncover the Personal Incumbency Advantage". As
always, a light lunch will be provided.
Abstract:
We study the conditions under which estimating the incumbency advantage
using a regression discontinuity (RD) design recovers
the personal
incumbency advantage in a two-party system. Lee (2008) has introduced RD as
a method for estimating what is generally considered the "partisan"
incumbency advantage. We present a causal model with some simple but
plausible assumptions that allows RD to be used to estimate the "personal"
incumbency advantage, as an alternative to sophomore surge, retirement
slump, and other commonly used measures. We estimate the incumbency
advantage using our model with data from U.S. House elections between 1952
and 2008. Using the assumptions of our model, we also explore the
estimation of the incumbency advantage beyond the limited RD conditions
where knife-edge electoral shifts create the leverage for causal inference.
This is joint work with Robert Erikson.
An up-to-date schedule for the workshop is available at
http://www.iq.harvard.edu/events/node/1208.
Best,
Konstantin
--
Konstantin Kashin
Ph.D. Student in Government
Harvard University
Mobile: 978-844-0538
E-mail: kkashin(a)fas.harvard.edu
Site:
http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~kkashin/