An error grave of consequence. Empirical models to study propensities to vote for parties

Nathalie Giger1, Simon Hug2  
Département de science politique et relations internationales
Université de Genève
 
Paper prepared for presentation at the General Conference of the
European Political Science Association (Brussels June, 2016)

First version January 2016, this version Jan 20, 2016

Abstract

Vote propensities for political parties have become an important component of many voter surveys. They are supposed to give more accurate and broad-ranging assessment of voters' positions with respect to the parties they may choose in an election. While this more detailed information on voters is certainly an advantage, many scholars analyze these data with empirical models that lead to biased estimates of the quantities of interest. We discuss the most commonly used models and demonstrate the conditions under which biased estimates result. We also propose an alternative way to analyze vote propensities (based on a SURE-model) which, under most assumptions, does not lead to biased estimates. We illustrate the performance of this model in empirical applications, where we compare it with the more commonly used models.

Footnotes:

1     D  ' e p a r t e m e n t d e s c i e n c e p o l i t i q u e e t r e l a t i o n s i n t e r n a t i o n a l e s , F a c u l t  ' e d e s s c i e n c e s d e l a s o c i  ' e t  ' e ; U n i v e r s i t  ' e d e G e n  ` e v e ; 4 0 , B d d u P o n t d ' A r v e ; 1 2 1 1 G e n  ` e v e 4 ; S w i t z e r l a n d ; e m a i l : n a t h a l i e . g i g e r @ u n i g e . c h
2     D  ' e p a r t e m e n t d e s c i e n c e p o l i t i q u e e t r e l a t i o n s i n t e r n a t i o n a l e s , F a c u l t  ' e d e s s c i e n c e s d e l a s o c i  ' e t  ' e ; U n i v e r s i t  ' e d e G e n  ` e v e ; 4 0 B d d u P o n t d ' A r v e ; 1 2 1 1 G e n  ` e v e 4 ; S w i t z e r l a n d ; p h o n e + + 4 1 2 2 3 7 9 8 3 7 8 ; e m a i l : s i m o n . h u g @ u n i g e . c h


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