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Problems of Time and Causality in Survey Cross-sections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Walter R. Mebane Jr.
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Abstract

Ordinary intuition about the relative exogeneity of demographic variables in a linear regression model is used to illustrate a general problem that can arise in statistical models for purely cross-sectional surveys: while the model that represents intuition is compatible with formal exogeneity criteria, the compatibility depends on information about variation over time with respect to each individual that a purely cross-sectional data collection lacks. That lack of information implies that the model usually used to represent the effects of demographic variables in cross-sectional surveys is seriously misspecified. The same limitation affects any specification motivated by ideas about temporal processes. The assumptions needed to translate ideas about temporal processes into a purely cross-sectional model are then identified, and found to include incredibly strong assumptions of homogeneity and stationarity. The difficulty of the assumptions appearing to be so extreme, the discussion then considers the possibility of a concept of causality that does not rely on variation over time, by briefly examining Lewin's field theory. The extent to which current survey practice draws on temporal ideas even in pure cross-sections is then indicated, with reference to The American Voter's image of a “funnel of causality.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 2 , 1990 , pp. 75 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © by the University of Michigan 1991 

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