Robert J. Franzese, Jr.

University of Michigan | U-M · Department of Political Science

Time-series cross-section (TSCS) data are prevalent in political science, yet many distinct challenges presented by TSCS data remain underaddressed. We focus on how dependence in both space and time complicates estimating either spatial or temporal dependence, dynamics, and effects. Little is known about how modeling one of temporal or cross-sectio...

This paper employs a regression-discontinuity design (RDD) to ascertain the effects of left government on the interest-rate premium that markets build into government-bond prices. One advantage of this approach is that RDD does not require, as have some previously employed strategies, strong assumptions about how market actors form political expect...

Best Poster Award at the PolNet (Political Networks Conference) 2010 Spatial interdependence|the dependence of outcomes in some units on those in others|is substantively and theoretically ubiquitous and central across the social sciences. Spatial association is also omnipresent empirically. However, spatial association may arise from three importa...

Most agree that models of binary time-series cross-sectional (BTSCS) data in political science often possess unobserved unit-level heterogeneity. Despite this, there is no clear consensus on how best to account for these potential unit effects, with many of the issues confronted seemingly misunderstood. For example, one oft-discussed concern with r...

Spatial/spatiotemporal interdependence—that is, that outcomes, actions or choices of some unit-times depend on those of other unit-times—is substantively important and empirically ubiquitous in binary outcomes of interest across the social sciences. Estimating and interpreting binary-outcome models that incorporate such spatial/spatiotemporal dynam...

One of the central challenges to inference in the context of potentially interdependent observations, known as Galton's Problem, is the difficulty distinguishing spatially correlated observations due to observed units exposure to spatially correlated shocks from spatial correlation in outcomes due to contagion (spillovers) between units. The applie...

Spatial interdependence-the dependence of outcomes in some units on those in others-is substantively and theoretically ubiquitous and central across the social sciences. Spatial association is also omnipresent empirically. However, spatial association may arise from three importantly distinct processes: common exposure of actors to exogenous extern...

Theorists have long argued that democratic policymakers respond to political pressures from their constituents. Although empirical work generally supports that broad contention, heterogeneity prevails both in theoretical work and empirically across country-times over exactly what comprises the constituency to which policymakers respond. We suggest...

When considering the implications for policy outcomes of the dispersion of policymaking authority across multiple actors, recent veto-actor scholarship has emphasized its potential to privilege the status quo and thus retard policyadjustment rates. In similar contexts, however, others have stressed collectiveaction and common-pool issues that arise...

Spatial/Spatiotemporal interdependence - i.e., that the outcomes, actions, or choices of some unit-times depend on those of others - is substantively and theoretically ubiquitous and central in binary outcomes of interest across the social sciences. However, most empirical applications omit spatial interdependence and, at best, treat temporal depen...

We propose applying the multiparametric spatiotemporal autoregressive (m-STAR) model as a simple approach to estimating jointly the pattern of connectivity and the strength of contagion by that pattern, including the case where connectivity is endogenous to the dependent variable (selection). We emphasize substantively-theoretically guided (i.e., s...

Political scientists frequently encounter and analyze spatially interdependent count data. Applications include counts of coups in African countries, of state participation in militarized interstate disputes, and of bills sponsored by members of Congress, to name just a few. The extant empirical models for spatially interdependent counts and their...

Empirical analyses of spatial interdependence in the social sciences have until recently remained largely confined to specialized areas of applied economics (e.g., urban/regional, environmental, and real-estate economics) and sociology (i.e., network analysis). However, social-scientific interest in and applications of spatial modeling have burgeon...

Even casual observation reveals obvious spatial patterns in labor-market outcomes and policies across the developed democracies, and within the European Union particularly. Labor-market policies entail significant cross-border spillovers, so strategic interdependence among developed democracies might explain this. However, these countries also face...

Course Objectives: Students will have an opportunity to learn how to specify, estimate, interpret, and present empirical models that reflect the sometimes complex (1) interactions and context-conditionality; (2) temporal, spatial, and spatiotemporal dynamics and interdependence; and (3) joint endogeneity of modern theories of domestic, comparative,...

The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics offers a critical survey of the field of empirical political science through the collection of a set of articles written by forty-seven scholars in the discipline of comparative politics. Part I includes articles surveying the key research methodologies employed in comparative politics (the comparative me...

This paper provides overview for lay audiences of the empirical modeling of the spatial and spatiotemporal interdependence that is substantively and theoretically ubiquitous, indeed inherently central, in political science.

Even casual observation reveals obvious spatial patterns in labor-market outcomes and policies across the developed democracies, and within the European Union particularly. Labor-market policies entail significant cross-border spillovers, so strategic interdependence among developed democracies might explain this. However, these countries also face...

We have argued and shown elsewhere the ubiquity and prominence of spatial interdependence, i.e., interdependence of outcomes among cross-sectional units, across the theories and substance of political and social science, and we have noted that much previous practice neglected this interdependence or treated it solely as nuisance, to the serious det...

Interdependence is ubiquitous, and often central, across political economy. In comparative political economy, for example, globalization and rising capital mobility imply tax competition that suggests the fiscal policies of one country must depend crucially upon those of other countries with which it competes for capital. In international political...

Interdependence is ubiquitous, and often central, across political economy. In comparative political economy, for example, globalization and rising capital mobility imply tax competition that suggests the fiscal policies of one country must depend crucially upon those of other countries with which it competes for capital. In international political...

When considering the implications for fiscal-policy outcomes (especially deficits and debts) of the dispersion of policymaking authority across multiple actors, recent veto-actor scholarship has emphasized its potential to privilege the status quo and thus retard policy-adjustment rates. In similar contexts, however, others have stressed collective...

In this paper, we discuss the substantive range of spatial interdependence in political and related social sciences. We offer a generic theoretical model demonstrating that interdependence arises whenever utilities of one actor depend on the choices of other actors - i.e., inter alia, in all strategic settings. We discuss Galton's problem of distin...

Complex, context-conditional theoretical propositions are the hallmark of positive comparative politics, classical and contemporary. This paper discusses strategies for effective empirical analysis of such propositions, concluding that, especially given the limited data typically available in comparative politics, empirical comparativists must rely...

Interdependence is ubiquitous, and often central, across comparative politics. In comparative political economy, for example, globalization and rising capital mobility imply tax competition that suggests the fiscal policies of one country must depend crucially upon those of other countries with which it competes for capital. This paper shows this t...

Conflicts of interest over the generosity and structure of redistribution and social insurance (jointly: social policy) include that between the relatively poor and wealthy - which yields the familiar result that median-voter demand for broad redistribution increases in the income skew - and that between the safely employed and the unemployed or pr...

The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy surveys the field of political economy. Over its long lifetime, political economy has had many different meanings: the science of managing the resources of a nation so as to provide wealth to its inhabitants for Adam Smith; the study of how the ownership of the means of production influenced historical proce...

This paper employs a regression-discontinuity (RD) design to ascertain the effects of social-democratic government on fiscal policy (budget deficits) and monetary policy (as reflected in inflation) and on currency and bond prices (i.e., exchange rates and yields). The RD design exploits the essentially random application of a treatment - in this ca...

Even casual observation reveals obvious spatial patterns (i.e., correlation, not necessarily always positive) in labor-market outcomes, institutions, and policies across Europe, and in the European Union particularly. Labor-market policies entail significant cross-border spillovers, both positive and negative, political and economic, so the strateg...

Conflicts of interest over the generosity and structure of redistribution and social insurance (call these jointly: social policy) include that between the relatively poor and wealthy - which theoretically produces the famous median-voter result that democratic demand for broad redistribution increases in the income skew - and that between the safe...

In this paper, we demonstrate the econometric consequences of different specification and estimation choices in the analysis of spatially interdependent data and show how to calculate and present spatial effect estimates substantively. We consider four common estimators—nonspatial OLS, spatial OLS, spatial 2SLS, and spatial ML. We examine analytica...

To date the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concerned itself with gathering a state of the art review of the science of climate change. While significant progress has been made in enhancing our integrated understanding of the climate system and the dynamics of the social systems that produce an array of potential greenhouse gas...

The European Union (EU) recently committed to becoming ‘the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world.’ Active labor market (ALM) policies are a critical part of the European Employment Strategy (EES) – the plan designed to achieve this objective. ALM policies entail several possible externalities that, spilling across natio...

Spatial and spatio-temporal lag models have become popular statistical tools in empirical studies of policy diffusion and strategic policy interdependence. While this is undoubtedly a positive development, too often researchers have ignored what is arguably the most important and substantively interesting information contained in their results: the...

Equivalent separate-subsample (two-step) and pooled-sample (one-step) strategies exist for any multilevel-modeling task, but their relative practicality and efficacy depend on dataset dimensions and properties and researchers' goals. Separate-subsample strategies have difficulties incorporating cross-subsample information, often crucial in time-ser...

for useful comments. We are grateful to Mark Hallerberg and Duane Swank for giving us their data. Xiaobo Lu also provided excellent research assistance. We alone are responsible for any errors.

European integration implies strategic (and non-strategic) interdependence in domestic policymaking. We evaluate four empirical estimators—non-spatial OLS, spatial OLS, spatial 2SLS-IV, and spatial ML—applied to such policies in a generic comparative and international political economy context with domestic factors, exogenous external factors, and...

for useful comments. Xiaobo Lu also provided excellent research assistance. We alone are responsible for any errors. Abstract: Scholars recognize that time-series-cross-section data typically correlate across time and space, yet they tend to model temporal dependence directly while addressing spatial interdependence solely as nuisance to be "correc...

Scholars recognize that time-series-cross-section data typically correlate across time and space, yet they tend to model temporal dependence directly while addressing spatial interdependence solely as nuisance to be “corrected ” (FGLS) or to which to be “robust ” (PCSE). In directly modeling international diffusion, one potential source of spatial...

Does international economic integration constrain the ability of national governments to redistribute income, risk, and opportunity through tax and expenditure policies? In answering this and related questions, scholars have overlooked the degree and manner to/in which fiscal policies correlate spatially as important evidence of globalization's inf...

This important collection presents an authoritative selection of papers on "Institutional Conflicts and Complementarities" This publication is intent on building bridges between economics and the other social sciences. The focus is on the interaction between monetary policy and wage bargaining institutions in European Monetary Union (EMU). Institut...

The causal arguments of modern, positive political science often imply complex interactions among multiple explanatory factors. In one example from comparative and international political economy (C&IPE), sharing of monetary‐policymaking control between partially autonomous central banks and politically responsive governments yields inflatio...

Theorists have long argued that democratic policymakers respond to political pressures from their constituents. Although empirical work generally supports that broad contention, heterogeneity prevails both in theoretical work and empirically across country-times over exactly what comprises the constituency to which policymakers respond. We propose...

Social scientists have long recognized that time-series-cross-section (TSCS) data typically correlate across time and space. Today, standard social-science practice is to model dynamics (i.e., temporal dependence) directly, typically with lags of the dependent variable, but to address spatial dependence solely by applying panel-corrected (robust) s...

Plans for the European Monetary Union (EMU) are based on the conventional postulate that increasing the independence of the central bank can reduce inflation without any real economic effects. However, the theoretical and empirical bases for this claim rest on models of the economy that make unrealistic information assumptions and omit institutiona...

Much recent research in political economy has focused on how globalization might affect the politics of institutional and policy choice. Research examining whether globalization will contribute to convergence of national institutional arrangements or policies is the preeminent example. In this paper, we use an extension of basic trade theory that r...

Recent studies of macroeconomic management under varying organization of wage/price bargaining and varying degrees of credible monetary conservatism synthesize and extend theory and empirics on central bank independence (CBI) and coordinated wage/price bargaining (CWB). These studies find that the degrees of CBI and CWB interact with each other and...

Many expect globalization and regional economic integration to force domestic institutions and policies to converge toward some efficiency-mandated minimalism. Applying basic trade theory to national institutional and policy systems clarifies, however, that the greater force is tax competition (broadly conceived), as abetted by ideology and transmi...

▪ Abstract Policy makers in democracies have strong partisan and electoral incentives regarding the amount, nature, and timing of economic-policy activity. Given these incentives, many observers expected government control of effective economic policies to induce clear economic-outcome cycles that track the electoral calendar in timing and incumben...

This book synthesizes and extends modern political-economic theory to explain the postwar evolution of macroeconomic policy in developed democracies. Chapters II-IV study transfers, debt, and monetary/wage policy-making and outcomes, stressing that participation enhances transfer-policy responsiveness to inequality and vice versa, that policy-makin...

The volume of theoretical literature seeking to explain public-debt accumulation has exploded in recent years as debt crises have emerged in many nations. However, empirical evaluation of political-economy theories has, unfortunately, lagged somewhat that of the standard taxsmoothing/economic-conditions model (0). This paper joins those beginning t...

Key Words political business cycles, electioneering, partisan theory, political economy s Abstract Policy makers in democracies have strong partisan and electoral in-centives regarding the amount, nature, and timing of economic-policy activity. Given these incentives, many observers expected government control of effective economic policies to indu...

This paper reviews recent work on macroeconomic management with varying organization of wage/price bargaining and degrees of credible monetary conservatism. The emerging literature synthesizes and extends theory and empirics on central bank independence (CBI) and coordinated wage/price bargaining (CWB), arguing that the degrees of CBI and CWB inter...

This paper reviews recent work on macroeconomic management with varying organization of wage/price bargaining and degrees of credible monetary conservatism. The emerging literature synthesizes and extends theory and empirics on central bank independence (CBI) and coordinated wage/price bargaining (CWB), arguing that the degrees of CBI and CWB inter...

Despite occasional constructive pedagogical treatises on the topic in the past (e.g., Friedrich 1982), a common methodology for employing and interpreting interaction terms in regression analysis continues to elude the field; and, partly as a consequence, their misinterpretation remains sadly rampant. This paper aims to redress these problems. We f...

With three waves of the World Value Survey (WVS) completed, covering about 15 years, we now have the beginnings of a time-series of data regarding the values of citizens in a wide sample of countries. With similar series already available indicating the extent of political and civil liberties (democracy, from Freedom House) and economic development...

: This chapter considers the politico-economic management of unemployment and inflation in developed capitalist democracies, focusing on the institutional and structural features of labor and goods markets and the credibility and conservatism of the monetary-policy authority. It reviews the central-bank-independence (CBI) and coordinated-wage-/pric...

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This paper reviews recent work on macroeconomic management with varying wage/price-bargaining organizational structures and degrees of credible commitment to monetary conservatism. The emerging literature synthesizes and extends theory and empirics on central bank independence (CBI) and coordinated wage/price bargaining (CWB), arguing that the degr...

Theories of central bank independence,have more exact implications regarding inflation in different political-economic environments than generally understood or empirically examined. They imply that inflation in any given country-time will be a weighted average of what it would be if the central bank completely controlled monetary policy and what i...

Social scientists study complex phenomena about which they often propose intricate hypotheses tested with linear-interactive or multiplicative terms. While interaction terms are hardly new to social science research, researchers have yet to develop a common methodology for using and interpreting them. Modeling and Interpreting Interactive Hypothese...

: In the postwar era until recently, transfer payments have risen seemingly inexorably as a fraction of GDP in every developed democracy. A considerable body of positive theory purports to explain this development as a direct consequence of the differential distributions of political (votes) and economic (money) resources. This literature concludes...

Theoretical literature seeking to explain public-debt accumulation exploded in recent years as debt crises emerged in many nations. Empirical evaluation of political-economy theories has, however, lagged that of basic economic-conditions models. This paper joins those beginning to redress the imbalance, operationalizing and evaluating standard elec...

Central to recent debates about international cooperation has been the contention that if states seek relative gains, cooperation becomes more difficult. To help revive and redirect the debate, we provide a general treatment of the relative-gains argument in the simplest possible formal terms. The analysis enables us to make two arguments which cha...

Abstract will be provided by author.

Abstract will be provided by author.

This chapter reviews recent work on political-economic management of monetary policy under varying institutional organization of labor/goods markets and varying degrees of credible conservatism in monetary policy. The emerging literature synthesizes and extends theoretical and empirical insights of previous work on central bank independence (CBI) a...

Spatial interdependence{the dependence of outcomes in some units on those in others{is substantively and theoretically ubiquitous and central across the social sciences. Spatial as- sociation is also omnipresent empirically. However, spatial association may arise from three importantly distinct processes: common exposure of actors to exogenous exte...

Conflicts of interest over the generosity and structure of public-good provision, redistribution, and social insurance (call these jointly: the social safety net) include that between the relatively poor and relatively wealthy—which conflict produces the famous median-voter result that democratic demand for broad-based public provision and redistri...

Abstract will be provided by author.

COURSE DESCRIPTION: Time-series cross-section (TSCS) data harness both cross-temporal and cross-spatial variation to maximize empirical leverage for theory evaluation. However, this powerful data structure also requires careful consideration of temporal and spatial (cross-unit) heterogeneity, temporal and spatial dynamic processes, and potentially...

Spatial interdependence, the interdependence of outcomes across units, is theoretically and substantively ubiquitous and central across the social sciences. The empirical clustering of outcomes on some dimension(s), spatial association, is also obvious in most contexts. However, outcomes may exhibit spatial association for three distinct reasons. U...

This paper offers a brief account of how interest and institutional structures interact to explain the divergent evolution of developed democracies' postwar commitments to social health-care provision. Institutions that fostered democratic participation also enhanced and balanced governmental responsiveness to inequality, economic hardship, and the...