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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Statistics and Probability

Smith College

Government: Faculty Publications

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

A Diffusion Network Event History Estimator, Jeffrey J. Harden, Bruce A. Desmarais, Mark Brockway, Frederick J. Boehmke, Scott J. Lacombe, Fridolin Linder, Hanna Wallach Apr 2023

A Diffusion Network Event History Estimator, Jeffrey J. Harden, Bruce A. Desmarais, Mark Brockway, Frederick J. Boehmke, Scott J. Lacombe, Fridolin Linder, Hanna Wallach

Government: Faculty Publications

Research on the diffusion of political decisions across jurisdictions typically accounts for units’ influence over each other with (1) observable measures or (2) by inferring latent network ties from past decisions. The former approach assumes that interdependence is static and perfectly captured by the data. The latter mitigates these issues but requires analytical tools that are separate from the main empirical methods for studying diffusion. As a solution, we introduce network event history analysis (NEHA), which incorporates latent network inference into conventional discrete-time event history models. We demonstrate NEHA’s unique methodological and substantive benefits in applications to policy adoption in …


Institutional Design And Policy Responsiveness In Us States, Scott J. Lacombe Mar 2023

Institutional Design And Policy Responsiveness In Us States, Scott J. Lacombe

Government: Faculty Publications

There is significant disagreement on the moderating role of institutions on policy responsive- ness, yet overwhelmingly research in state politics has focused on single institutions. This project leverages a new aggregate scale of state institutions to evaluate if the collective insti- tutional context moderates the influence of public opinion on policy. I use a recently released latent scale of institutional context and find that high levels of accountability pressure strongly strengthen public opinion’s influence on policy for both economic and social policy, while the strength of a state’s checks and balance system is largely unrelated to policy responsiveness. These results …


The Link Between Democratic Institutions And Population Health In The American States, Julianna Pacheco, Scott Lacombe Oct 2022

The Link Between Democratic Institutions And Population Health In The American States, Julianna Pacheco, Scott Lacombe

Government: Faculty Publications

Context: This project investigates the role of state-level institutions in explaining variation in population health in the American states. Although cross-national research has established the positive effects of democracy on population health, little attention has been given to subnational units. The authors leverage a new data set to understand how political accountability and a system of checks and balances are associated with state population health. Methods: The authors estimate error correction models and two-way fixed effects models to estimate how the strength of state-level democratic institutions is associated with infant mortality rates, life expectancy, and midlife mortality. Findings: The authors …