Accountability and Information 1

Final Project Essentials: Fixed Effects

Jeremy Springman

University of Pennsylvania

Global Development: Intermediate Topics in Politics, Policy, and Data

PSCI 3200 - Spring 2024

Logistics

Assignments

  • Today
  • Tuesday (3/28)
    • Foreign aid readings
    • Github tutorial (maybe)
  • April 9
    • Final project proposal

Agenda


  1. Dunning et al. (2019)
  2. FINAL questions about Data Assignment 1
  3. Final Project Essentials: Fixed Effects

Dunning et al. (2019)

Barriers hindering accumulation


What is accumulation?

  • Building knowledge across studies

What makes it difficult?

  • Limited replication
  • Heterogeneity of design and measurement
  • Publication bias

Barriers hindering accumulation

Facilitating accumulation


What solutions are discussed by the authors?

  • Pre-registration
  • Harmonizing theory, measurement, and estimation
  • Publication of null results

Facilitating accumulation

Models of political accountability

Accountability requires that voters:

  • Observe credible signal of performance
    • Attribution
    • Benchmarking
  • Update their beliefs
  • Have credible alternatives

Models of political accountability

What does the literature say?

  • Theory is mixed
    • Partisan and sectarian attachments are strong
    • Voters may be reluctant to update their beliefs
  • Experimental results are mixed
    • Demobilization
    • Limited recall
    • Ephemeral effects

Research Design

Intervention

  • Information on political performance
    • Legislative behavior
    • Spending irregularities
    • Budget allocation
    • Candidate experience

Research Design

Accountability requires that voters:

  • Observe credible signal of performance
    • Attribution
    • Benchmarking
  • Update their beliefs
    • Good news: \(Q > P \mid 1(P = Q, Q > med(Q) )\)
  • Have credible alternatives

Ecological Validity


  • How is information disseminated?
  • What is the real world activity being tested?

Describing Information

Problems hindering accumulation

Research Design


Core hypotheses:

  1. Good news increases voter support for incumbents
  2. Bad news decreases voter support for incumbents
  3. Effect of information will increase with gap between Q and P
  4. Strongest for nonpartisan and non-coethnic voters

Findings

Why the null results?

  • Source credibility?
    • No…
  • Lack of retention
  • Lack of updating on politician performance
  • Lack of updating about politician quality
  • Lack of coordination (private treatment)

Statistical Power


Null results were not “foregone conclusion”?

  • 80% power
  • Change the vote of 5/100 voters
  • Change turnout of 4/100 voters

Findings

Findings

Findings

Policy Implications


  • Much of the work funded by donors is probably not having an impact on accountability
  • Targeting of information provision needs to be rethought
    • Public dissemination and coordination

Data Assignment Questions

Final Project Essentials

Unit Fixed Effects

What is a unit fixed effect?

  • Simple linear models make comparisons both across and within units (when there are multiple measures)
  • Fixed effects ‘absorb’ variation across units; now coefficients estimate only the variation within units
  • This ‘controls’ for time-invariant heterogeneity

What are they used for?

  • Reducing concerns about confounding
  • Difference-in-differences

Unit Fixed Effects

Normal model

\[ Y_it = \alpha + \beta_1 X_{it} + \epsilon_{it} \] Unit fixed Effects model

\[ Y_it = \gamma_i + \beta_1 X_{it} + \epsilon_{it} \]

Example: Unit FEs with one binary predictor

  • \(\alpha\): \(E[Y_i]\) when \(X_{i1} = 0\)
  • \(\gamma_i\): \(E[Y_i]\) for every unit when \(X_{i1} = 0\)

Unit Fixed Effects

Unit fixed Effects model

\[ Y_it = \gamma_i + \beta_1 X_{it} + \epsilon_{it} \]

**How does the interpretation of \(\beta_1\) change?

  • \(\gamma_i\): \(E[Y_i]\) when \(X_{it} = 0\)
  • \(\beta_1\) Change in \(E[Y_i]\) when \(X_{it} = 1\)
  • Each \(\gamma_i\) will absorb everything that doesn’t vary over time in that unit

Unit Fixed Effects

Unit Fixed Effects

jrspringman.github.io/psci3200-globaldev/