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Aggregation Reversals and the Social Formation of Beliefs

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Edward L. Glaeser
Bruce Sacerdote

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Abstract

In the past two elections, richer people were more likely to vote Republican while richer states were more likely to vote Democratic. This switch is an aggregation reversal, where an individual relationship, like income and Republicanism, is reversed at some level of aggregation. Aggregation reversals can occur when an independent variable impacts an outcome both directly and indirectly through a correlation with beliefs. For example, income increases the desire for low taxes but decreases belief in Republican social causes. If beliefs are learned socially, then aggregation can magnify the connection between the independent variable and beliefs, which can cause an aggregation reversal. We estimate the model's parameters for three examples of aggregation reversals, and show with these parameters that the model predicts the observed reversals.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 13031.

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Date of creation: Apr 2007
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13031

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A1 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics

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Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Jose A. Scheinkman & Wei Xiong, 2003. "Overconfidence and Speculative Bubbles," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 111(6), pages 1183-1219, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Ellison, Glenn & Fudenberg, Drew, 1993. "Rules of Thumb for Social Learning," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 612-43, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Kevin Murphy & Andrei Shleifer, 2004. "Persuasion in Politics," NBER Working Papers 10248, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Edward Glaeser & Giacomo Ponzetto & Andrei Shleifer, 2006. "Why Does Democracy Need Education?," NBER Working Papers 12128, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Ellison, Glenn & Fudenberg, Drew, 1995. "Word-of-Mouth Communication and Social Learning," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(1), pages 93-125, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Merlo, A. & Schotter, A., 2001. "Learning By Not Doing: An Experimental Investigation of Observational Learning," Working Papers 01-09, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Matthew A. Gentzkow & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2004. "Media, Education and Anti-americanism in the Muslim World," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 117-133, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Rafael Di Tella & Sebastian Galiani & Ernesto Schargrodsky, 2007. "The Formation of Beliefs: Evidence from the Allocation of Land Titles to Squatters," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 122(1), pages 209-241, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Edward L. Glaeser & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2005. "Strategic Extremism: Why Republicans and Democrats Divide on Religious Values," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 120(4), pages 1283-1330, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Barberis, Nicholas & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert, 1998. "A model of investor sentiment1," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 307-343, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Brian Knight & Nathan Schiff, 2007. "Momentum and Social Learning in Presidential Primaries," NBER Working Papers 13637, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Eric Brunner & Stephen L. Ross & Ebonya Washington, 2008. "Economics and Ideology: Causal Evidence of the Impact of Economic Conditions on Support for Redistribution and Other Ballot Proposals," Working papers 2008-18, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Aug 2008. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Costa-Font, J & Gemmill, M & Rubert, G, 2009. "Re-visiting the Health Care Luxury Good Hypothesis: Aggregation, Precision, and Publication Biases?," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 09/02, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York. [Downloadable!]
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