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Xiaohui Wang

2008-12-17
10:00:00 - 11:30:00

Supreme Court Judges: Blue or Red?

308 , Mathematics Research Center Building (ori. New Math. Bldg.)

Ideal point estimation is an important tool to study legislative and judicial voting behaviors. In this paper, we propose a hierarchical ideal point estimation framework that directly models complex voting behaviors based on the characteristics of the political actors and the votes they cast. Through simulations and empirical examples we show that this framework holds good promise for resolving many unsettled issues, such as the multi-dimensional aspects of ideology, and the effects of political parties.