Homework Assignment 4

Professor Ozer

The following table presents regression models from a famous article called “Homer Gets a Tax Cut: Inequality and Public Policy in the American Mind”. Each model presents analysis on a different dependent variable.

Political information is a measure of political knowledge, with higher scores indicating that the respondent knew more about politics. Republican party identification was measured so that higher scores indicate that the respondent more strongly identified with the Republican party. Family income simply measured the amount of money the respondent made in a year, measured in 1000s of dollars. All variables have been rescaled to run from -1 to 1 or 0 to 1.

When interpreting the results, please be sure to include the actual numbers in your answers.

Question 1: Has the income gap increased?

What effect does political information have on the perception that the income gap has increased? How can we tell if the effect is statistically significant?

What effect does Republican Party identification have on the perception that the income gap has increased? Is the effect statistically significant?

What percent of the variance in the dependent variable is explained by our independent variables?

Question 2: Is the income gap a bad thing?

What effect does political information have on the perception that the income gap is a bad thing? How can we tell if the effect is statistically significant?

What effect does Republican Party identification have on the perception that the income gap is a bad thing? Is the effect statistically significant?

What percent of the variance in the dependent variable is explained by our independent variables?

Question 3: Have you thought about the tax cut?

What effect does political information have on how much the respondents have thought about the tax cut? How can we tell if the effect is statistically significant?

What effect does Republican Party identification have how much the respondents have thought about the tax cut? Is the effect statistically significant?

What percent of the variance in the dependent variable is explained by our independent variables?

Question 4: Do you favor the tax cut?

What effect does political information have on how much the respondents favor the tax cut? How can we tell if the effect is statistically significant?

What effect does Republican Party identification have how much the respondents favor the tax cut? Is the effect statistically significant?

What percent of the variance in the dependent variable is explained by our independent variables?