Simon Jackman

Department of Political Science

Encina Hall West, Room 315
Stanford University
jackman@stanford.edu
Spring 2015

PS 350C: Political Methodology 3

We consider a variety of statistical models in this class, presuming that students have a
sound knowledge of the linear regression model for continuous outcomes.
We will begin with a consideration of maximum likelihood estimation, and then turn to
models for discrete responses: binary (e.g., turning out to vote) ordinal (responses to Likert
items on surveys, rating schemes) and unordered or multinomial outcomes (e.g., voting in a
multi-party system). We will also briefly look at models for counts (e.g., number of terrorist
attacks).
We will then cover the following topics:
an introduction to Bayesian inference
hierarchical or multi-level models
topics in multivariate analysis, i.e., models and methods for measurement and/or
data reduction, as typically arise when combining various indicators to create scale
measures of concepts (e.g., a countrys level of democracy, a legislators ideology, a
survey respondents level of racial prejudiuce). We will examine principal components,
factor analysis, and item-response models.
how to handle missing data

Teaching Assistants
Our TAs for this class are
Mathilde Emariau memeriau@stanford.edu
Bradley Spahn bspahn@stanford.edu
The TAs will hold section for the class at 9.30-11.30 on Friday, in the ANES seminar room, in
the Center for the Study of American Politics, in the basement of Encina Hall West.

Texts
There is no prescribed text for this class. Ill supply my own notes for much of the class. I
strongly recommend the book by Gelman and Hill:
Gelman, Andrew and Jennifer Hill. 2006. Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models. Cambridge University Press. New York.
For the material on models for discrete dependent variables, older but easily digested texts
include:
Long, J. Scott. 1997. Regression Models for Categorical and Limited Dependent
Variables, Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, California.
Hosmer, David W. and Stanley Lemeshow. 2000. Applied Logistic Regression. Wiley:
New York.
Slightly more advanced, but a classic work on the subject is
Agresti, Alan. 2002. Categorical Data Analysis. Wiley: New York.
For a slightly higher level, econometric perspective on models for discrete outcomes, see
Cameron, A. Colin and Pravin K. Trivedi. 2005. Microeconometrics: Methods and
Applications. Cambridge University Press: New York.
The following books provide detailed treatments of multinomial choice models:
Hensher, David A, John M. Rose and William H. Greene. Applied Choice Analysis: A
Primer. 2005. Cambridge University Press: New York.
Train, Kenneth E. 2009. Discrete Choice Methods with Simulation. 2009. Cambridge
University Press: New York.
For our treatment of multivariate analysis, I will rely on
Everitt, Brian and Torsten Hothorn. 2011. An Introduction to Applied Multivariate
Analysis with R. Springer: New York.
My lecture notes will have references to applications and other source materials.

Contact
Im available by appointment (please either just stop by my office or send an email).
We have a Piazza site for the class (signup). Please use the Q&A section of the Piazza class
site.
PS 150C/350C, SPRING 2015 - SYLLABUS - PAGE 2 OF 3

Scheduling Issues
We are scheduled to have class Tuesday and Thursdays at 11am.
Tuesday classes: we have been assigned GESB (Green Earth Sciences Building) 134. This
room holds 24 but is a long way from Encina and I expect it will be a very crowded room. Im
looking for another option closer to Encina, but for now, this is it.
Thursday classes: Graham Stuart Lounge, 4th floor, Encina West.
We will not have class on
Thursday April 30
Thursday May 14
I will propose make-up lectures for those sessions.

Assessment
We will have
1. five or six homeworks, comprising data analysis and write-ups and some more analytical
questions testing your understanding of the models we will encounter
2. a take-home, open-book final exam
with roughly a 60-40 weighting given to the homeworks and the exam, respectively.

Software
As in other methodology classes in the Department of Political Science, we will use R.

PS 150C/350C, SPRING 2015 - SYLLABUS - PAGE 3 OF 3