A new document has been added to the Society for Political Methodology Website.

 Title:     A Statistical Method for Empirical Testing of Competing Theories

Author(s):     Kosuke Imai, Dustin Tingley

Entry Date:     2010-08-24

Keyword(s):     EITM, finite mixture model, Bayesian statistics, multiple testing, false discovery rate, EM algorithm

Abstract:      Empirical testing of competing theories lies at the heart of social science research. We demonstrate that a very general and well-known class of statistical models, called finite mixture models, provides an effective way of rival theory testing. In the proposed framework, each observation is assumed to be generated from a statistical model implied by one of the theories under consideration. Researchers can then estimate the probability that a specific observation is consistent with either of the competing theories. By directly modeling this probability with the characteristics of observations, one can also determine the conditions under which a particular theory applies. We discuss a principled way to identify a list of observations that are statistically significantly consistent with each theory. Finally, we propose several measures of the overall performance of a particular theory. We illustrate the advantages of our method by applying it to an influential s!
 
 tudy on trade policy preferences.

http://polmeth.wustl.edu/mediaDetail.php?docId=1248

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