Testing Hypotheses of No Meaningful Effect

Transcript

1. Testing Hypotheses of No Meaningful Effect Carlisle Rainey
2. I'd like to convince you of three things
3. Important 1
4. Our arguments are not compelling 2
5. Our arguments can be compelling 3
6. Important Step 1:
7. Hypotheses of no meaningful effect are crucial to complete evaluation of theories
8. Interaction
9. Social heterogeneity increases the number of parties, but only when electoral institutions are sufficiently permissive. “ ” Clark and Golder (2006)
10. Adjudication
13. How often do these examples occur?
14. 30%
15. Our arguments are not compelling Step 2:
16. No American president since FDR has won a second term when the unemployment rate topped 7.2 percent... Obama must defy that trend to keep his job. “ ” New York Times June 1, 2011 “ ”
19. The nation's unemployment status by itself is not going to affect Obama's. “ ” Seth Masket June 2, 2011
20. My critique
21. Rule out implausible relationships
28. Insignificance can't be used to argue for “no effect.”
29. But doesn't everyone already know that? “ ” A skeptic
30. Political scientists draw strong conclusions from insignificance.
31. Recessions have no effect on whether a democracy is consolidated. “ ” Svolik (2008)
32. Our arguments can be compelling Step 3:
33. just like any other hypothesis
34. Argue against relationships inconsistent with the hypothesis
35. Define substantively meaningful Step 1:
36. Check the 90% CI Step 2:
37. Only negativity about the respondent’s preferred candidate should have a significant demobilizing effect on voter turnout. “ ” Krupnikov (2011)
38. What's a meaningful effect? 1% 3% 5% 7% 9%
39. The demobilizing effect could be as large as 9%
40. Those are the three things
41. Important 1
42. Our arguments are not compelling 2
43. Our arguments can be compelling 3
44. But what should I do about this? “ ” You
45. Go read the details crain.co/nme 1
46. Think about your own work. 2
47. Keep in mind when reviewing others' work 3