andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-97 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
Source: html
Introduction: Grazia Pittau, Roberto Zelli, and I came out with a paper investigating the role of economic variables in predicting regional disparities in reported life satisfaction of European Union citizens. We use multilevel modeling to explicitly account for the hierarchical nature of our data, respondents within regions and countries, and for understanding patterns of variation within and between regions. Here’s what we found: - Personal income matters more in poor regions than in rich regions, a pattern that still holds for regions within the same country. - Being unemployed is negatively associated with life satisfaction even after controlled for income variation. Living in high unemployment regions does not alleviate the unhappiness of being out of work. - After controlling for individual characteristics and modeling interactions, regional differences in life satisfaction still remain. Here’s a quick graph; there’s more in the article:
sentIndex sentText sentNum sentScore
1 Grazia Pittau, Roberto Zelli, and I came out with a paper investigating the role of economic variables in predicting regional disparities in reported life satisfaction of European Union citizens. [sent-1, score-1.358]
2 We use multilevel modeling to explicitly account for the hierarchical nature of our data, respondents within regions and countries, and for understanding patterns of variation within and between regions. [sent-2, score-1.688]
3 Here’s what we found: - Personal income matters more in poor regions than in rich regions, a pattern that still holds for regions within the same country. [sent-3, score-1.924]
4 - Being unemployed is negatively associated with life satisfaction even after controlled for income variation. [sent-4, score-1.122]
5 Living in high unemployment regions does not alleviate the unhappiness of being out of work. [sent-5, score-0.957]
6 - After controlling for individual characteristics and modeling interactions, regional differences in life satisfaction still remain. [sent-6, score-1.268]
wordName wordTfidf (topN-words)
[('regions', 0.555), ('satisfaction', 0.333), ('regional', 0.227), ('life', 0.196), ('within', 0.173), ('unhappiness', 0.164), ('pittau', 0.155), ('roberto', 0.155), ('grazia', 0.148), ('income', 0.146), ('alleviate', 0.143), ('unemployed', 0.135), ('disparities', 0.132), ('negatively', 0.129), ('union', 0.123), ('investigating', 0.116), ('modeling', 0.114), ('controlled', 0.11), ('european', 0.109), ('characteristics', 0.101), ('holds', 0.1), ('controlling', 0.097), ('unemployment', 0.095), ('matters', 0.092), ('explicitly', 0.089), ('predicting', 0.086), ('respondents', 0.086), ('living', 0.086), ('interactions', 0.085), ('countries', 0.081), ('account', 0.081), ('poor', 0.077), ('rich', 0.077), ('role', 0.076), ('still', 0.075), ('patterns', 0.074), ('pattern', 0.074), ('variation', 0.074), ('associated', 0.073), ('reported', 0.072), ('nature', 0.071), ('hierarchical', 0.071), ('personal', 0.07), ('multilevel', 0.068), ('quick', 0.067), ('differences', 0.065), ('economic', 0.06), ('individual', 0.06), ('variables', 0.06), ('understanding', 0.059)]
simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
same-blog 1 1.0 97 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-18-Economic Disparities and Life Satisfaction in European Regions
Introduction: Grazia Pittau, Roberto Zelli, and I came out with a paper investigating the role of economic variables in predicting regional disparities in reported life satisfaction of European Union citizens. We use multilevel modeling to explicitly account for the hierarchical nature of our data, respondents within regions and countries, and for understanding patterns of variation within and between regions. Here’s what we found: - Personal income matters more in poor regions than in rich regions, a pattern that still holds for regions within the same country. - Being unemployed is negatively associated with life satisfaction even after controlled for income variation. Living in high unemployment regions does not alleviate the unhappiness of being out of work. - After controlling for individual characteristics and modeling interactions, regional differences in life satisfaction still remain. Here’s a quick graph; there’s more in the article:
Introduction: Maggie Fox writes : Brain scans may be able to predict what you will do better than you can yourself . . . They found a way to interpret “real time” brain images to show whether people who viewed messages about using sunscreen would actually use sunscreen during the following week. The scans were more accurate than the volunteers were, Emily Falk and colleagues at the University of California Los Angeles reported in the Journal of Neuroscience. . . . About half the volunteers had correctly predicted whether they would use sunscreen. The research team analyzed and re-analyzed the MRI scans to see if they could find any brain activity that would do better. Activity in one area of the brain, a particular part of the medial prefrontal cortex, provided the best information. “From this region of the brain, we can predict for about three-quarters of the people whether they will increase their use of sunscreen beyond what they say they will do,” Lieberman said. “It is the one re
3 0.22604796 98 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-19-Further thoughts on happiness and life satisfaction research
Introduction: As part of my continuing research project with Grazia and Roberto, I’ve been reading papers on happiness and life satisfaction research. I’ll share with you my thoughts on some of the published work in this area. Alberto Alesina,, Rafael Di Tella, and Robert MacCulloch published a paper in 2004 called “Inequality and happiness: are Europeans and Americans different?”: We study the effect of the level of inequality in society on individual well-being using a total of 123,668 answers to a survey question about “happiness.” We find that individuals have a lower tendency to report themselves happy when inequality is high, even after controlling for individual income, a large set of personal characteristics, and year and country (or, in the case of the US, state) dummies. The effect, however, is more precisely defined statistically in Europe than in the US. In addition, we find striking differences across groups. In Europe, the poor and those on the left of the political spectru
4 0.17453244 490 andrew gelman stats-2010-12-29-Brain Structure and the Big Five
Introduction: Many years ago, a research psychologist whose judgment I greatly respect told me that the characterization of personality by the so-called Big Five traits (extraversion, etc.) was old-fashioned. So I’m always surprised to see that the Big Five keeps cropping up. I guess not everyone agrees that it’s a bad idea. For example, Hamdan Azhar wrote to me: I was wondering if you’d seen this recent paper (De Young et al. 2010) that finds significant correlations between brain volume in selected regions and personality trait measures (from the Big Five). This is quite a ground-breaking finding and it was covered extensively in the mainstream media. I think readers of your blog would be interested in your thoughts, statistically speaking, on their methodology and findings. My reply: I’d be interested in my thoughts on this too! But I don’t know enough to say anything useful. From the abstract of the paper under discussion: Controlling for age, sex, and whole-brain volume
5 0.1445353 702 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-09-“Discovered: the genetic secret of a happy life”
Introduction: I took the above headline from a news article in the (London) Independent by Jeremy Laurance reporting a study by Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, James Fowler, and Bruno Frey that reportedly just appeared in the Journal of Human Genetics. One of the pleasures of blogging is that I can go beyond the usual journalistic approaches to such a story: (a) puffing it, (b) debunking it, (c) reporting it completely flatly. Even convex combinations of (a), (b), (c) do not allow what I’d like to do, which is to explore the claims and follow wherever my exploration takes me. (And one of the pleasures of building my own audience is that I don’t need to endlessly explain background detail as was needed on a general-public site such as 538.) OK, back to the genetic secret of a happy life. Or, in the words the authors of the study, a gene that “explains less than one percent of the variation in life satisfaction.” “The genetic secret” or “less than one percent of the variation”? Perhaps the secre
6 0.13932371 1358 andrew gelman stats-2012-06-01-Question 22 of my final exam for Design and Analysis of Sample Surveys
7 0.12913883 1349 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-28-Question 18 of my final exam for Design and Analysis of Sample Surveys
8 0.1232246 851 andrew gelman stats-2011-08-12-year + (1|year)
11 0.10189648 1352 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-29-Question 19 of my final exam for Design and Analysis of Sample Surveys
12 0.10144378 486 andrew gelman stats-2010-12-26-Age and happiness: The pattern isn’t as clear as you might think
13 0.10016605 706 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-11-The happiness gene: My bottom line (for now)
14 0.098259762 1356 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-31-Question 21 of my final exam for Design and Analysis of Sample Surveys
16 0.092876427 1548 andrew gelman stats-2012-10-25-Health disparities are associated with low life expectancy
17 0.088106677 502 andrew gelman stats-2011-01-04-Cash in, cash out graph
18 0.084123746 636 andrew gelman stats-2011-03-29-The Conservative States of America
20 0.07938572 1348 andrew gelman stats-2012-05-27-Question 17 of my final exam for Design and Analysis of Sample Surveys
topicId topicWeight
[(0, 0.089), (1, -0.012), (2, 0.094), (3, -0.011), (4, 0.032), (5, -0.0), (6, -0.041), (7, -0.014), (8, 0.015), (9, 0.074), (10, -0.023), (11, -0.027), (12, -0.021), (13, 0.088), (14, 0.07), (15, -0.002), (16, 0.037), (17, 0.015), (18, 0.003), (19, -0.005), (20, 0.028), (21, -0.005), (22, -0.016), (23, -0.021), (24, 0.013), (25, -0.024), (26, 0.005), (27, -0.008), (28, -0.031), (29, -0.031), (30, 0.034), (31, -0.005), (32, -0.002), (33, -0.036), (34, 0.002), (35, 0.027), (36, 0.003), (37, 0.012), (38, -0.034), (39, 0.011), (40, -0.036), (41, -0.029), (42, -0.042), (43, 0.022), (44, -0.024), (45, -0.057), (46, 0.004), (47, -0.068), (48, -0.077), (49, -0.051)]
simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
same-blog 1 0.9820134 97 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-18-Economic Disparities and Life Satisfaction in European Regions
Introduction: Grazia Pittau, Roberto Zelli, and I came out with a paper investigating the role of economic variables in predicting regional disparities in reported life satisfaction of European Union citizens. We use multilevel modeling to explicitly account for the hierarchical nature of our data, respondents within regions and countries, and for understanding patterns of variation within and between regions. Here’s what we found: - Personal income matters more in poor regions than in rich regions, a pattern that still holds for regions within the same country. - Being unemployed is negatively associated with life satisfaction even after controlled for income variation. Living in high unemployment regions does not alleviate the unhappiness of being out of work. - After controlling for individual characteristics and modeling interactions, regional differences in life satisfaction still remain. Here’s a quick graph; there’s more in the article:
2 0.66622436 98 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-19-Further thoughts on happiness and life satisfaction research
Introduction: As part of my continuing research project with Grazia and Roberto, I’ve been reading papers on happiness and life satisfaction research. I’ll share with you my thoughts on some of the published work in this area. Alberto Alesina,, Rafael Di Tella, and Robert MacCulloch published a paper in 2004 called “Inequality and happiness: are Europeans and Americans different?”: We study the effect of the level of inequality in society on individual well-being using a total of 123,668 answers to a survey question about “happiness.” We find that individuals have a lower tendency to report themselves happy when inequality is high, even after controlling for individual income, a large set of personal characteristics, and year and country (or, in the case of the US, state) dummies. The effect, however, is more precisely defined statistically in Europe than in the US. In addition, we find striking differences across groups. In Europe, the poor and those on the left of the political spectru
3 0.63099408 1548 andrew gelman stats-2012-10-25-Health disparities are associated with low life expectancy
Introduction: Lee Seachrest points to an article , “Life expectancy and disparity: an international comparison of life table data,” by James Vaupel, Zhen Zhang, and Alyson van Raalte. This paper has killer graphs. Here are their results: In 89 of the 170 years from 1840 to 2009, the country with the highest male life expectancy also had the lowest male life disparity. This was true in 86 years for female life expectancy and disparity. In all years, the top several life expectancy leaders were also the top life disparity leaders. Although only 38% of deaths were premature, fully 84% of the increase in life expectancy resulted from averting premature deaths. The reduction in life disparity resulted from reductions in early-life disparity, that is, disparity caused by premature deaths; late-life disparity levels remained roughly constant. The authors also note: Reducing early-life disparities helps people plan their less-uncertain lifetimes. A higher likelihood of surviving to old age
4 0.60302895 159 andrew gelman stats-2010-07-23-Popular governor, small state
Introduction: A couple years ago, upon the selection of Sarah Palin as vice-presidential nominee, I made some graphs of the popularity of governors of different-sized states: As I wrote at the time : It seems to be easier to maintain high approval in a small state. What’s going on? Some theories: in a large state, there will be more ambitious politicians on the other side, eager to knock off the incumbent governor; small states often have part-time legislatures and thus the governor is involved in less political conflict; small states (notably Alaska) tend to get more funds per capita from the federal government, and it’s easier to be popular when you can disburse more funds; large states tend to be more heterogeneous and so it’s harder to keep all the voters happy. I was curious how things have been going more recently, and Hanfei made an updated graph using data from this archive . Here’s the story: There’s lots of variation–clearly there are many other factors than state popu
Introduction: Kyle Peyton writes: I’m passing you this recent news article by Ewen Callaway in the hope that you will make a comment about the methodology on your blog. It’s generated some back and forth between the economics and science communities. I [Peyton] am very sceptical of the reductive approach taken by the economics profession generally, and the normative implications this kind of research generates. For example, p. 7 of the working paper states: “…[according to our model] decreasing the diversity of the most diverse country in the sample (Ethopia) by 1 percentage point would raise its income per capita by 21 percent”. Understandably, this piece is couched in assumptions that would take hours to pick apart, but their discussion of the approach belies the uncertainty involved. The main response by the authors in defense is that genetic diversity is a ‘proxy variable’. This is a common assertion, but I find it really infuriating. I happen to drink coffee most days, which correla
6 0.57500732 636 andrew gelman stats-2011-03-29-The Conservative States of America
8 0.56495756 1386 andrew gelman stats-2012-06-21-Belief in hell is associated with lower crime rates
9 0.55002731 187 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-05-Update on state size and governors’ popularity
10 0.54873675 1145 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-30-A tax on inequality, or a tax to keep inequality at the current level?
11 0.54758984 1147 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-30-Statistical Murder
12 0.54756063 196 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-10-The U.S. as welfare state
13 0.5427447 678 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-25-Democrats do better among the most and least educated groups
14 0.54246449 1022 andrew gelman stats-2011-11-21-Progress for the Poor
16 0.54162323 647 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-04-Irritating pseudo-populism, backed up by false statistics and implausible speculations
17 0.54078567 201 andrew gelman stats-2010-08-12-Are all rich people now liberals?
18 0.53792304 1587 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-21-Red state blue state, or, states and counties are not persons
19 0.52869689 495 andrew gelman stats-2010-12-31-“Threshold earners” and economic inequality
20 0.52856392 702 andrew gelman stats-2011-05-09-“Discovered: the genetic secret of a happy life”
topicId topicWeight
[(2, 0.344), (12, 0.02), (15, 0.018), (16, 0.099), (21, 0.017), (24, 0.086), (43, 0.02), (84, 0.015), (99, 0.255)]
simIndex simValue blogId blogTitle
1 0.98330647 663 andrew gelman stats-2011-04-15-Happy tax day!
Introduction: Your taxes pay for the research funding that supports the work we do here, some of which appears on this blog and almost all of which is public, free, and open-source. So, to all of the taxpayers out there in the audience: thank you.
same-blog 2 0.96893686 97 andrew gelman stats-2010-06-18-Economic Disparities and Life Satisfaction in European Regions
Introduction: Grazia Pittau, Roberto Zelli, and I came out with a paper investigating the role of economic variables in predicting regional disparities in reported life satisfaction of European Union citizens. We use multilevel modeling to explicitly account for the hierarchical nature of our data, respondents within regions and countries, and for understanding patterns of variation within and between regions. Here’s what we found: - Personal income matters more in poor regions than in rich regions, a pattern that still holds for regions within the same country. - Being unemployed is negatively associated with life satisfaction even after controlled for income variation. Living in high unemployment regions does not alleviate the unhappiness of being out of work. - After controlling for individual characteristics and modeling interactions, regional differences in life satisfaction still remain. Here’s a quick graph; there’s more in the article:
3 0.95152259 489 andrew gelman stats-2010-12-28-Brow inflation
Introduction: In an article headlined, “Hollywood moves away from middlebrow,” Brooks Barnes writes : As Hollywood plowed into 2010, there was plenty of clinging to the tried and true: humdrum remakes like “The Wolfman” and “The A-Team”; star vehicles like “Killers” with Ashton Kutcher and “The Tourist” with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp; and shoddy sequels like “Sex and the City 2.” All arrived at theaters with marketing thunder intended to fill multiplexes on opening weekend, no matter the quality of the film. . . . But the audience pushed back. One by one, these expensive yet middle-of-the-road pictures delivered disappointing results or flat-out flopped. Meanwhile, gambles on original concepts paid off. “Inception,” a complicated thriller about dream invaders, racked up more than $825 million in global ticket sales; “The Social Network” has so far delivered $192 million, a stellar result for a highbrow drama. . . . the message that the year sent about quality and originality is real enoug
4 0.93269944 44 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-20-Boris was right
Introduction: Boris Shor in January : the pivotal Senator will now be a Republican, not a Democrat . . . Brown stands to become the pivotal member of the Senate. The New York Times today : The Senate voted on Thursday afternoon to close debate on a far-reaching financial regulatory bill . . . In an interesting twist, the decisive vote was supplied by Senator Scott Brown, the Republican freshman of Massachusetts . . .
5 0.93140489 17 andrew gelman stats-2010-05-05-Taking philosophical arguments literally
Introduction: Aaron Swartz writes the following, as a lead-in to an argument in favor of vegetarianism: Imagine you were an early settler of what is now the United States. It seems likely you would have killed native Americans. After all, your parents killed them, your siblings killed them, your friends killed them, the leaders of the community killed them, the President killed them. Chances are, you would have killed them too . . . Or if you see nothing wrong with killing native Americans, take the example of slavery. Again, everyone had slaves and probably didn’t think too much about the morality of it. . . . Are these statements true, though? It’s hard for me to believe that most early settlers (from the context, it looks like Swartz is discussing the 1500s-1700s here) killed native Americans. That is, if N is the number of early settlers, and Y is the number of these settlers who killed at least one Indian, I suspect Y/N is much closer to 0 than to 1. Similarly, it’s not even cl
7 0.91690207 1017 andrew gelman stats-2011-11-18-Lack of complete overlap
8 0.9145872 549 andrew gelman stats-2011-02-01-“Roughly 90% of the increase in . . .” Hey, wait a minute!
9 0.90127093 1189 andrew gelman stats-2012-02-28-Those darn physicists
10 0.88566548 1698 andrew gelman stats-2013-01-30-The spam just gets weirder and weirder
11 0.87996709 1508 andrew gelman stats-2012-09-23-Speaking frankly
12 0.87826127 1663 andrew gelman stats-2013-01-09-The effects of fiscal consolidation
13 0.87715459 1872 andrew gelman stats-2013-05-27-More spam!
14 0.86598408 1567 andrew gelman stats-2012-11-07-Election reports
15 0.85580665 1260 andrew gelman stats-2012-04-11-Hunger Games survival analysis
16 0.84777558 1893 andrew gelman stats-2013-06-11-Folic acid and autism
17 0.84585947 1954 andrew gelman stats-2013-07-24-Too Good To Be True: The Scientific Mass Production of Spurious Statistical Significance
18 0.83962893 1102 andrew gelman stats-2012-01-06-Bayesian Anova found useful in ecology
19 0.80291951 1254 andrew gelman stats-2012-04-09-In the future, everyone will publish everything.
20 0.79692692 2360 andrew gelman stats-2014-06-05-Identifying pathways for managing multiple disturbances to limit plant invasions