Ho, Daniel E. and Kosuke Imai. (2006). ``Randomization Inference With Natural Experiments: An Analysis of Ballot Effects in the 2003 California Recall Election.'' Journal of the American Statistical Association, Vol. 101, No. 475 (September), pp.888 - 900.

 

  Abstract

Since the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, social scientists have rediscovered a long tradition of research that examines the effects of ballot format on voting. Using a new dataset collected by the New York Times, we investigate the causal effect of being listed on the first ballot page in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election. California law mandates a unique randomization procedure of ballot order that, when appropriately modeled, can be used to approximate a classical randomized experiment in a real world setting. We apply randomization inference based on Fisher's exact test, which directly incorporates the exact randomization procedure and yields accurate nonparametric confidence intervals. Our results suggest that over forty percent of the minor candidates gained more votes when listed on the first page of the ballot, while there is no significant effect for top two candidates. We also investigate how randomization inference differs from conventional estimators that do not fully incorporate California's complex treatment assignment mechanism. The results indicate appreciable differences between the two approaches.
You might also be interested in Ho, Daniel E. and Kosuke Imai. (2008). ``Estimating Causal Effects of Ballot Order from a Randomized Natural Experiment: California Alphabet Lottery, 1978-2002." Public Opinion Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 2 (Summer), pp. 216-240.

© Kosuke Imai
  Last modified: Mon Jun 2 21:48:37 EDT 2008