Books that use just plain data analysis

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Books that use just plain data analysis
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• Charles Murray, Losing Ground American Social
  Policy 1950-1980 (New York Basic Books, 1984)
• Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty Economic
  Possibilities for Our Time (New York, NY Penguin
  Press, 2005)
• The Worldwatch Institute, The State of the World,
  2006 (New York W.W. Norton, 2006)
• Bjorn Lomborg, The Skeptical Environmentalist
  (Cambridge, U.K., Cambridge University Press,
  2001)
• Robert D. Putnam, Bowling Alone (New York Simon
  and Schuster, 2000), 419
• Kevin Phillips, The Politics of Rich and Poor
  Wealth and the American Electorate in the Reagan
  Aftermath (New York, HarperPerrenial, 1991)
• John Lott, More Guns, Less Crime Understanding
  Crime and Gun-Control Laws, 2nd edition
  (University Of Chicago Press, 2000)

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• Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom, No Excuses
  Closing the Racial Gap in Learning (Simon
  Schuster, 2004)

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Social Indicators count, divide. compare

• Counts (number of murders, infant deaths, poor
  families, unemployed people, birth to teenage
  mothers, amount spent on health care)
• Divisors(number of people, infants born,
  families, members of the labor force, teenage
  mothers, GNP)
• Comparisons

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Comparisons across jurisdictions (cross national)
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Time Series Comparison
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Comparisons across groups
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Cross-national Time Series Comparisons
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Reliability and Validity

• Reliability consistency in measurement
• Validity Does it measure what it is supposed to
  measure

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Reliability

• Consistent Measurement
• Across time, across cities, countries
• (note births to unwed mothers in the US T 1311)
• Testing effects (scores improve the second time).
• Instrumentation (changing procedures for
  recording the data).
• Sampling error.

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Validity Voter Turnout
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Comparisons of Two Indicators