Modeling Ordered Choices: A Primer

EAN: 9780521142373
Published: 08/04/2010
Language: English

It is increasingly common for analysts to seek out the opinions of individuals and organizations using attitudinal scales such as degree of satisfaction or importance attached to an issue. Examples include levels of obesity, seriousness of a health condition, attitudes towards service levels, opinions on products, voting intentions, and the degree of clarity of contracts. Ordered choice models provide a relevant methodology for capturing the sources of influence that explain the choice made amongst a set of ordered alternatives. The methods have evolved to a level of sophistication that can allow for heterogeneity in the threshold parameters, in the explanatory variables (through random parameters), and in the decomposition of the residual variance. This book brings together contributions in ordered choice modeling from a number of disciplines, synthesizing developments over the last fifty years, and suggests useful extensions to account for the wide range of sources of influence on choice.

List of tables; List of figures; Preface; 1. Introduction: random utility and ordered choice models; 2. Modeling binary choices; 3. A model for ordered choices; 4. Antecedents and contemporary counterparts; 5. Estimation, inference and analysis using the ordered choice model; 6. Specification issues in ordered choice models; 7. Accommodating individual heterogeneity; 8. Parameter variation and a generalized ordered choice model; 9. Ordered choice modeling with panel and time series data; 10. Bivariate and multivariate ordered choice models; 11. Two part and sample selection models; 12. Semiparametric and nonparametric estimators and analyses; References; Index.