Matthew Yglesias » State-Level House Prices Uncorrelated With Polling

Nov 3rd, 2008 at 11:43 am

State-Level House Prices Uncorrelated With Polling

Yesterday, I had some doubts that Greg Mankiw’s factoid about Obama leading in states where home prices have declined really “explained the election” (as Marc Ambinder said) or, indeed, explained much of anything at all. I had the argument, but David Shor’s got the regression and, indeed, there’s nothing here:

Since nothing tops off a Sunday night like a regression, I ran an analysis using the house-price change data Professor Manikiw provided, and as Matt suspected, it was very insignificant( Rejected at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 40% confidence).

He’s promising a county-level examination of the issue once the voting data is in after the election.

Comments
19

Filed under: Housing, Public Opinion,

19 Responses to “State-Level House Prices Uncorrelated With Polling”

Peter Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm
In a way it’s disappointing that such an easy explanation didn’t work.
Petey Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:16 pm
How can you not be blogging about the Iverson trade?!? There are some things more important than elections, y’know…
cd Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Nice new banner…Wait, Iverson got traded?
Al Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Petey – welcome to your new team… the Detroit Pistons!
Petey Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:29 pm
“Petey – welcome to your new team… the Detroit Pistons!”

De—troit—Basket—ball

My only worry is that Rip and Bubbachuck have the same basic schtick on the court.

—–

I hope Iverson can play in tonight’s game. It’s against Larry Brown…
Robert Waldmann Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
AAARRGGGGG nice regression but intollerable use of the word “rejected”. “Insignificant” means that the null hypothesis of zero correlation is NOT rejected. The ALTERNATIVE hypothesis of a non zero correlation can’t be rejected. The null hypothesis of a negative correlation between the change in house prices and Obama support can only be rejected if there is a statistically significant positive correlation.

An insignificant test statistic can’t reject anything.

Arghh
Get off of my ~~lawn~~ Neyman Pearson framework.
Robert Waldmann Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
OOOOoooops I said “nice regression” before looking at the regression. It is invalid.

One of the right hand side “independent” variables is “fundshare” which is defined as
“FundShare – Two-Way Fundraising Share in state (Obama_Fundraising/(Obama_Fundraising+McCain_Fundraising)”

This is clearly a 2008 dated endogenous variable. A correlation between support in polls for Obama and support in dollars for Obama obviously can’t be interpreted as causation (which is the idea). In contrast Kerry support and fraction “American” American are clearly pre-determined while house prices are current but plausibly connected with voting preference only as changes in house prices cause changes in voting preference.

One could as well have put fundshare on the left and pollshare on the right.

If tanking house prices have made people mad as hell at Republicans they might well send Obama their money (what’s left of it) and their votes. Thus true home price to voting causation would be masked by the improper inclusion of an endogenous variable.

The regression is no good OK for Sunday night, but worth a failing grade if not corrected by Tuesday morning.
David Shor Says:
November 3rd, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Robert Waldmann,

I corrected that issue a couple hours ago, sorry for that. Also, fixed the terminology a bit for you.

Can I claim Sunday night drowsiness?
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Matt Yglesias

State-Level House Prices Uncorrelated With Polling

19 Responses to “State-Level House Prices Uncorrelated With Polling”

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