Essays in Political Methodology
Contributors: King, Gary; Ansolabehere, Stephen; Glynn, Adam
Published: 2012
Language: eng
Description: This dissertation provides three novel methodologies to the field of political science. In the first chapter, I describe how to make causal inferences in the face of dynamic strategies. Traditional causal inference methods assume that these dynamic decisions are made all at once, an assumption that forces a choice between omitted variable bias and post-treatment bias. I resolve this dilemma by adapting methods from biostatistics and use these methods to estimate the effectiveness of an inherently dynamic process: a candidate's decision to ``go negative.'' Drawing on U.S. statewide elections (2000-2006), I find, in contrast to the previous literature, that negative advertising is an effective strategy for non-incumbents.
Notes: Keywords: Bayesian Inference, Causal Inference, Measurement Error, Missing Data, Multiple Imputation, Negative Advertising.

Thesis Ph.D. Harvard University 2012