Identification Problems in the Social Sciences

Identification Problems in the Social Sciences
Author: Charles F. Manski
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 194
Release: 1995
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780674442849

The author draws on examples from a range of disciplines to provide social and behavioural scientists with a toolkit for finding bounds when predicting behaviours based upon nonexperimental and experimental data.

Identification Problems in the Social Sciences

Identification Problems in the Social Sciences
Author: Charles F. Manski
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 365
Release: 1999-03-15
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0674265807

This book provides a language and a set of tools for finding bounds on the predictions that social and behavioral scientists can logically make from nonexperimental and experimental data. The economist Charles Manski draws on examples from criminology, demography, epidemiology, social psychology, and sociology as well as economics to illustrate this language and to demonstrate the broad usefulness of the tools. There are many traditional ways to present identification problems in econometrics, sociology, and psychometrics. Some of these are primarily statistical in nature, using concepts such as flat likelihood functions and nondistinct parameter estimates. Manski's strategy is to divorce identification from purely statistical concepts and to present the logic of identification analysis in ways that are accessible to a wide audience in the social and behavioral sciences. In each case, problems are motivated by real examples with real policy importance, the mathematics is kept to a minimum, and the deductions on identifiability are derived giving fresh insights. Manski begins with the conceptual problem of extrapolating predictions from one population to some new population or to the future. He then analyzes in depth the fundamental selection problem that arises whenever a scientist tries to predict the effects of treatments on outcomes. He carefully specifies assumptions and develops his nonparametric methods of bounding predictions. Manski shows how these tools should be used to investigate common problems such as predicting the effect of family structure on children's outcomes and the effect of policing on crime rates. Successive chapters deal with topics ranging from the use of experiments to evaluate social programs, to the use of case-control sampling by epidemiologists studying the association of risk factors and disease, to the use of intentions data by demographers seeking to predict future fertility. The book closes by examining two central identification problems in the analysis of social interactions: the classical simultaneity problem of econometrics and the reflection problem faced in analyses of neighborhood and contextual effects.

Identification for Prediction and Decision

Identification for Prediction and Decision
Author: Charles F. Manski
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780674033665

This book is a full-scale exposition of Charles Manski's new methodology for analyzing empirical questions in the social sciences. He recommends that researchers first ask what can be learned from data alone, and then ask what can be learned when data are combined with credible weak assumptions. Inferences predicated on weak assumptions, he argues, can achieve wide consensus, while ones that require strong assumptions almost inevitably are subject to sharp disagreements. Building on the foundation laid in the author's Identification Problems in the Social Sciences (Harvard, 1995), the book's fifteen chapters are organized in three parts. Part I studies prediction with missing or otherwise incomplete data. Part II concerns the analysis of treatment response, which aims to predict outcomes when alternative treatment rules are applied to a population. Part III studies prediction of choice behavior. Each chapter juxtaposes developments of methodology with empirical or numerical illustrations. The book employs a simple notation and mathematical apparatus, using only basic elements of probability theory.

Social Science Research

Social Science Research
Author: Anol Bhattacherjee
Publisher: CreateSpace
Total Pages: 156
Release: 2012-04-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9781475146127

This book is designed to introduce doctoral and graduate students to the process of conducting scientific research in the social sciences, business, education, public health, and related disciplines. It is a one-stop, comprehensive, and compact source for foundational concepts in behavioral research, and can serve as a stand-alone text or as a supplement to research readings in any doctoral seminar or research methods class. This book is currently used as a research text at universities on six continents and will shortly be available in nine different languages.

The Behavioral and Social Sciences

The Behavioral and Social Sciences
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 301
Release: 1988-02-01
Genre: Science
ISBN: 0309037492

This volume explores the scientific frontiers and leading edges of research across the fields of anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, sociology, history, business, education, geography, law, and psychiatry, as well as the newer, more specialized areas of artificial intelligence, child development, cognitive science, communications, demography, linguistics, and management and decision science. It includes recommendations concerning new resources, facilities, and programs that may be needed over the next several years to ensure rapid progress and provide a high level of returns to basic research.

Future Worlds of Social Science

Future Worlds of Social Science
Author: Lawrence Hazelrigg
Publisher: Ethics International Press
Total Pages: 691
Release: 2023-11-25
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1871891868

What are the possible future worlds of social science? How do these prospects compare with recent conclusions that social science “is generally a non-factor in policy debates and irrelevant to the lives of a host of real-world people,” as a well-known sociologist reported in the centennial volume of the American Sociological Association? This substantial study covers history, art and aesthetics, identity and the self, in seeking an answer to the question of ‘Future Worlds’.

Applied Multivariate Statistics for the Social Sciences, Fifth Edition

Applied Multivariate Statistics for the Social Sciences, Fifth Edition
Author: James P. Stevens
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 666
Release: 2012-11-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1136910697

This best-selling text is written for those who use, rather than develop statistical methods. Dr. Stevens focuses on a conceptual understanding of the material rather than on proving results. Helpful narrative and numerous examples enhance understanding and a chapter on matrix algebra serves as a review. Annotated printouts from SPSS and SAS indicate what the numbers mean and encourage interpretation of the results. In addition to demonstrating how to use these packages, the author stresses the importance of checking the data, assessing the assumptions, and ensuring adequate sample size by providing guidelines so that the results can be generalized. The book is noted for its extensive applied coverage of MANOVA, its emphasis on statistical power, and numerous exercises including answers to half. The new edition features: New chapters on Hierarchical Linear Modeling (Ch. 15) and Structural Equation Modeling (Ch. 16) New exercises that feature recent journal articles to demonstrate the actual use of multiple regression (Ch. 3), MANOVA (Ch. 5), and repeated measures (Ch. 13) A new appendix on the analysis of correlated observations (Ch. 6) Expanded discussions on obtaining non-orthogonal contrasts in repeated measures designs with SPSS and how to make the identification of cell ID easier in log linear analysis in 4 or 5 way designs Updated versions of SPSS (15.0) and SAS (8.0) are used throughout the text and introduced in chapter 1 A book website with data sets and more. Ideal for courses on multivariate statistics found in psychology, education, sociology, and business departments, the book also appeals to practicing researchers with little or no training in multivariate methods. Prerequisites include a course on factorial ANOVA and covariance. Working knowledge of matrix algebra is not assumed.

The SAGE Handbook of Social Science Methodology

The SAGE Handbook of Social Science Methodology
Author: William Outhwaite
Publisher: SAGE
Total Pages: 641
Release: 2007-10-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1446206459

"An excellent guidebook through different approaches to social science measurement, including the all-important route-maps that show us how to get there." - Roger Jowell, City University "In this wide-ranging collection of chapters, written by acknowledged experts in their fields, Outhwaite and Turner have brought together material in one volume which will provide an extremely important platform for consideration of the full range of contemporary analytical and methodological issues." - Charles Crothers, Auckland University of Technology This is a jewel among methods Handbooks, bringing together a formidable collection of international contributors to comment on every aspect of the various central issues, complications and controversies in the core methodological traditions. It is designed to meet the needs of those disciplinary and nondisciplinary problem-oriented social inquirers for a comprehensive overview of the methodological literature. The text is divided into 7 sections: Overviews of methodological approaches in the social sciences Cases, comparisons and theory Quantification and experiment Rationality, complexity and collectivity Interpretation, critique and postmodernity Discourse construction Engagement. Edited by two leading figures in the field, the Handbook is a landmark work in the field of research methods. More than just a ′cookbook′ that teaches readers how to master techniques, it will give social scientists in all disciplines an appreciation for the full range of methodological debates today, from the quantitative to the qualitative, giving them deeper and sharpen insights into their own research questions. It will generate debate, solutions and a series of questions for researchers to exploit and develop in their research and teaching.

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Social Science

The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Social Science
Author: Harold Kincaid
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 676
Release: 2012-08-23
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0195392752

The philosophy of the social sciences considers the underlying explanatory powers of the social (or human) sciences, such as history, economics, anthropology, politics, and sociology. The type of questions covered includes the methodological (the nature of observations, laws, theories, and explanations) to the ontological — whether or not these sciences can explain human nature in a way consistent with common-sense beliefs. This Handbook is a major, comprehensive look at the key ideas in the field, is guided by several principles. The first is that the philosophy of social science should be closely connected to, and informed by, developments in the sciences themselves. The second is that the volume should appeal to practicing social scientists as well as philosophers, with the contributors being both drawn from both ranks, and speaking to ongoing controversial issues in the field. Finally, the volume promotes connections across the social sciences, with greater internal discussion and interaction across disciplinary boundaries.