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Modeling Dynamic Preferences: A Bayesian Robust Dynamic Latent Ordered Probit Model

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Daniel Stegmueller
Daniel Stegmueller*
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester CO4 3SQ, UK e-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Much politico-economic research on individuals' preferences is cross-sectional and does not model dynamic aspects of preference or attitude formation. I present a Bayesian dynamic panel model, which facilitates the analysis of repeated preferences using individual-level panel data. My model deals with three problems. First, I explicitly include feedback from previous preferences taking into account that available survey measures of preferences are categorical. Second, I model individuals' initial conditions when entering the panel as resulting from observed and unobserved individual attributes. Third, I capture unobserved individual preference heterogeneity both via standard parametric random effects and a robust alternative based on Bayesian nonparametric density estimation. I use this model to analyze the impact of income and wealth on preferences for government intervention using the British Household Panel Study from 1991 to 2007.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , Summer 2013 , pp. 314 - 333
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

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