andrew_gelman_stats andrew_gelman_stats-2010 andrew_gelman_stats-2010-100 knowledge-graph by maker-knowledge-mining
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Introduction: Jeff Lax sends along this good catch from Ben Somberg, who noticed this from Washington Post writer Lori Montgomery: If Congress doesn’t provide additional stimulus spending, economists inside and outside the administration warn that the nation risks a prolonged period of high unemployment or, more frightening, a descent back into recession. But a competing threat — the exploding federal budget deficit — seems to be resonating more powerfully in Congress and among voters. Somberg is skeptical, though, at least of the part about “resonating among voters.” He finds that in four out of five recent polls, people are much more concerned about jobs than about the deficit: A Pew Research / National Journal poll from early June asked “Which of the following national economic issues worries you most?” Number one was “job situation” with 41%. “Federal budget deficit” got 23%. An NBC / Wall Street Journal poll from early May asked “Please tell me which one of these items you thi
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1 But a competing threat — the exploding federal budget deficit — seems to be resonating more powerfully in Congress and among voters. [sent-2, score-1.116]
2 ” He finds that in four out of five recent polls, people are much more concerned about jobs than about the deficit: A Pew Research / National Journal poll from early June asked “Which of the following national economic issues worries you most? [sent-4, score-0.818]
3 An NBC / Wall Street Journal poll from early May asked “Please tell me which one of these items you think should be the top priority for the federal government. [sent-7, score-0.757]
4 A Fox News poll also in early May got even more dramatic results. [sent-10, score-0.325]
5 A CBS / NYT poll in early April found 27% prioritizing “jobs”, 27% the “economy” and 5% prioritizing “budget deficit/national debt. [sent-12, score-0.577]
6 ” In the USA Today / Gallup poll from late May . [sent-13, score-0.226]
7 participants were asked “How serious a threat to the future well-being of the United States do you consider each of the following. [sent-16, score-0.274]
8 For “unemployment”, 33% said extremely serious, 50% said very serious, and 15% said somewhat serious. [sent-18, score-0.251]
9 “Economy in general” gets 28%, “Unemployment/Jobs” gets 21%, and “Federal budget deficit” gets 7%. [sent-21, score-0.346]
10 The Washington Post’s own polls have not asked a question that directly addresses the matter. [sent-22, score-0.213]
11 Maybe it is a good idea to raise taxes and cut spending now, or maybe it’s better to take more debt now and plan to pay it off in a few years. [sent-25, score-0.404]
12 My macroeconomic expertise hovers around zero, so I’ll offer no expert opinion on that one. [sent-26, score-0.15]
13 But I’d have to see some better evidence before I believe that the deficit is “resonating more powerfully” than unemployment/recession in the opinions of voters. [sent-27, score-0.399]
14 She follows up with something that sounds a lot more reasonable: Polls show most people don’t think Obama’s first stimulus package worked, and they are sending mixed signals about whether Washington should spend more on jobs or start minding the national debt. [sent-31, score-0.562]
15 Again, I haven’t looked at the poll numbers, but it could very well be, for example, that, even if people don’t care about the deficit, they could still be suspicious of “federal spending. [sent-33, score-0.226]
16 For example, the Somberg considers deficit talk to be part of “conservatives’ dream universe,” but, to the extent that deficit-cutting is done by increased taxes on the upper-income brackets, it could be more of a conservative’s nightmare. [sent-35, score-0.466]
17 Tax cuts sound good, spending cuts sound good, lower deficits sound good, but spending on particular items sound good also. [sent-36, score-1.233]
18 This is not to say that public opinion doesn’t matter, just that people are ultimately asking their leaders to make decisions that lead to good economic decisions (leading to jobs and economic growth). [sent-38, score-0.684]
19 From a public opinion standpoint, my impression is that things like deficits are just a means to an end, and basically I think Somberg is getting things right in his criticism. [sent-39, score-0.245]
20 I think Montgomery is right that public opinion is relevant in regard to trust in Obama and the Democrats to enact good policies; she just has to be a bit more careful in her specifics. [sent-40, score-0.281]
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Introduction: Jeff Lax sends along this good catch from Ben Somberg, who noticed this from Washington Post writer Lori Montgomery: If Congress doesn’t provide additional stimulus spending, economists inside and outside the administration warn that the nation risks a prolonged period of high unemployment or, more frightening, a descent back into recession. But a competing threat — the exploding federal budget deficit — seems to be resonating more powerfully in Congress and among voters. Somberg is skeptical, though, at least of the part about “resonating among voters.” He finds that in four out of five recent polls, people are much more concerned about jobs than about the deficit: A Pew Research / National Journal poll from early June asked “Which of the following national economic issues worries you most?” Number one was “job situation” with 41%. “Federal budget deficit” got 23%. An NBC / Wall Street Journal poll from early May asked “Please tell me which one of these items you thi
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Introduction: We all have opinions about the federal budget and how it should be spent. Infrequently, those opinions are informed by some knowledge about where the money actually goes. It turns out that most people don’t have a clue. What about you? Here, take this poll/quiz and then compare your answers to (1) what other people said, in a CNN poll that asked about these same items and (2) compare your answers to the real answers. Quiz is below the fold. The questions below are from a CNN poll. ======== Think about all the money that the federal government spent last year. I’m going to name a few federal programs and for each one, I’d like you to estimate what percentage of the federal government’s budget last year was spent on each of those programs. Medicare — the federal health program for the elderly Medicaid — the federal health program for the poor Social Security Military spending by the Department of Defense Aid to foreign countries for international development
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Introduction: John Sides reports on a paper by Benjamin Page and Lawrence Jacobs about so-called deliberative forums, in particular a set of meetings called America Speaks that have been organized and conducted by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, an organization formed by the former advertising executive, Secretary of Commerce, and investment banker to focus attention on the national debt. Sides, Page, and Jacobs discuss three key points: 1. Any poll or focus group is only as good as its sample, and there is no evidence that the participants in the America Speaks forums were selected in a way to be representative of the nation. Page and Jacobs write: Deliberative forums often fail to get a representative sample of Americans to participate, even when they try hard to do so. Worse, some deliberative forums make little or no serious effort to achieve representativeness. They throw open the doors to self-selected political activists with extreme opinions, or they compile a secret list
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Introduction: See below. W. D. Burnham is a former professor of mine, T. Ferguson does important work on money and politics, and J. Stiglitz is a colleague at Columbia (whom I’ve never actually met). Could be interesting. Join the Roosevelt Institute on December 2nd, from 8-11am at NYC’s Harvard Club 27 West 44th St. for a panel discussion of the Bipartisan Deficit Commission Report, the future of the U.S. Economy, and the prospects for policy change in the wake of the midterm elections. The conversation will be framed by the release of three new Roosevelt Institute White Papers: Democracy in Peril: The American Turnout Problem and the Path to Plutocracy (Walter Dean Burnham) A World Upside Down: Deficit Fantasies in the Great Recession (Thomas Ferguson and Robert Johnson) Principles and Guidelines For Deficit Reduction (Joseph Stiglitz) Because space is limited, please RSVP to Madeleine Ehrlich at mehrlich@rooseveltinstitute.org or 212.444.9138.
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Introduction: Even if a policymaker is sure of the ideal economic policy, he or she can only implement it with the help of some of the other political players. But I’m saying something different, echoing what I wrote a couple days ago. I thought of this the other day after seeing this recent quote from Paul Krugman ( extracted by Brad DeLong) about Larry “Starbucks” Summers: Summers is . . . indistinguishable from me [Krugman] on macro-policy. And he may be a bit to the left, because he’s even more certain than I am . . . that some extra spending now will actually help us more in fiscal terms. So he published a piece in the Financial Times that was meant to be a big statement about this. But before he got to that, he spend three paragraphs about the importance of dealing with the deficit in the medium term . . . to establish that ‘I am a respectable person; I am not like that rabble-rouser, Krugman.’ . . . Maybe. But, going back to 2009, I still suspect that Summers, or some part of S
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Introduction: Jeff Lax sends along this good catch from Ben Somberg, who noticed this from Washington Post writer Lori Montgomery: If Congress doesn’t provide additional stimulus spending, economists inside and outside the administration warn that the nation risks a prolonged period of high unemployment or, more frightening, a descent back into recession. But a competing threat — the exploding federal budget deficit — seems to be resonating more powerfully in Congress and among voters. Somberg is skeptical, though, at least of the part about “resonating among voters.” He finds that in four out of five recent polls, people are much more concerned about jobs than about the deficit: A Pew Research / National Journal poll from early June asked “Which of the following national economic issues worries you most?” Number one was “job situation” with 41%. “Federal budget deficit” got 23%. An NBC / Wall Street Journal poll from early May asked “Please tell me which one of these items you thi
Introduction: Frank Newport of Gallup reports ( link from Jay Livingston): Americans become progressively less positive about economic conditions the farther away from home they look. Forty-nine percent rate economic conditions in their local area as excellent or good, but that drops to 25% when rating the U.S. economy, and to 13% when assessing the world as a whole. This is really wack: I can see how it might make sense for Americans to think conditions are worse in other countries, but it’s hard to see a rational reason for the Lake-Wobegon-like pattern of people thinking things are ok locally but not nationally. Gallup highlights the partisan breakdown, which I graphed here: Unsurprisingly (given that their party controls the presidency and one house of Congress), Democrats are more optimistic than Republicans. This is just the flip side of University of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan claiming in October 2008 that the economy is not that bad because “the current unem
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Introduction: 10. Out of a random sample of 100 Americans, zero report having ever held political office. From this information, give a 95% confidence interval for the proportion of Americans who have ever held political office. Solution to question 9 From yesterday : 9. Out of a population of 100 medical records, 40 are randomly sampled and then audited. 10 out of the 40 audits reveal fraud. From this information, give an estimate, standard error, and 95% confidence interval for the proportion of audits in the population with fraud. Solution: estimate is p.hat=10/40=0.25. Se is sqrt(1-f)*sqrt(p.hat*(1-.hat)/n)=sqrt(1-0.4)*sqrt(0.25*0.75/40)=0.053. 95% interval is [0.25 +/- 2*0.053] = [0.14,0.36].
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Introduction: A correspondent writes: I just want to spend a few words to point you to this book I have just found on Amazon: “Understanding The New Statistics: Effect Sizes, Confidence Intervals, and Meta-Analysis” by G. Cumming. I have been attracted by the rather unusual and ‘sexy’ title but it seems to be nothing more than an attempt at alerting the psychology community on considering point estimation procedures and confidence intervals, in place of hypothesis testing, the latter being ‘a terrible idea!’ in the author’s own words. Some more quotes here . Then he says: “‘These are hardly new techniques, but I label them ‘The New Statistics’ because using them would for many researchers be quite new, as well as a highly beneficial change!’” Of course the latter is not stated on the book cover. That’s about as bad as writing a book with subtitle, “Why Americans vote the way they do,” but not actually telling the reader why Americans vote the way they do. I guess what I’m saying is:
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