The Future of Ecological Inference Research: A Reply to Freedman Et Al

Journal of the American Statistical Association, March 1999

4 Pages Posted: 16 Jan 2008

Abstract

I appreciate the editor's invitation to reply to Freedman et al.'s (1998) review of A Solution to the Ecological Inference Problem: Reconstructing Individual Behavior from Aggregate Data (Princeton University Press.) I welcome this scholarly critique and JASA's decision to publish in this field. Ecological inference is a large and very important area for applications that is especially rich with open statistical questions. I hope this discussion stimulates much new scholarship. Freedman et al. raise several interesting issues, but also misrepresent or misunderstand the prior literature, my approach, and their own empirical analyses, and compound the problem, by refusing requests from me and the editor to make their data and software available for this note. Some clarification is thus in order.

Suggested Citation

King, Gary, The Future of Ecological Inference Research: A Reply to Freedman Et Al. Journal of the American Statistical Association, March 1999, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1083801

Gary King (Contact Author)

Harvard University ( email )

1737 Cambridge St.
Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States
617-500-7570 (Phone)

HOME PAGE: http://gking.harvard.edu