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A few years ago Jared Diamond got in trouble for garbling facts and making up quotations in an article about Papua New Guinea. The other day, Diamond criticized Mitt Romney “because he misrepresented my [Diamond’s] views and, in contrasting them with another scholar’s arguments, oversimplified the issue.” Fair enough, but I think he should be […]

Reading this discussion by Matthew Yglesias about purchasing power parity adjustments reminds me of the time I tried to track down Russia’s per-capita GDP. I got the following different numbers: $7,600 (World Bank 2007) $9,100 (World Bank 2007) $14,700 (PPP adjusted, World Bank 2007) $4,500 (World Bank 2006) $7600 or $14,400 (gross national income: “Atlas […]

I received the following (unsolicited) email: Dear ANDREW GELMAN, I have had an opportunity to read your paper entitled “WHAT IS THE PROBABILITY YOUR VOTE WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE?” published on the journal “Economic Inquiry”. I know you are an expert in this field. I am Daisy, the editor of Business and Economic Research (BER) […]

Sociologist Brandy Aven writes: I have been thinking a lot about reproducible science, particularly for the social sciences. Creating norms or policies that enforce reproducible science may not only be cheap insurance to mitigate academic fraud but also improve our field. . . . There are quite a few wonderful archives out there that provide […]

The other day, in discussing the virtues of the electoral college compared to national popular vote election for president, Jonathan Bernstein wrote that “the big, urban states traditionally did very well in the electoral college. . . . all else equal, a presidential candidate would rather pander to a large state with lots of winner-take-all […]

Jon Healey of the LA Times asked: I was wondering if you’d done any research into whether vice presidential choices make a measurable difference in a presidential candidate’s ability to win. Have you? And if so, what did you find? My reply: A few years ago we did an analysis that estimates the VP effect […]

This particular story is pretty frustrating. From economist Stan Liebowitz: There is virtually no interest in detecting cheating. And what good would that do if there is no form of punishment? I say this because I think I have found a case in one of our top journals but the editor allowed the authors of […]

Dan Balz asked me the same 8 questions he asked to John. Here are the questions and my responses: Q1: Will the campaign be relentlessly negative to the end? A: I expect so but I’m no expert on this. Q2: Will Romney’s choice of a vice presidential running mate make any difference? A: Maybe 2% […]

Jonathan Bernstein writes: The big, urban states traditionally did very well in the electoral college. . . . New York used to be a major swing state; California also was very contested once it became large, and even Texas had a run as a competitive state with big cities for a while. For whatever reason, […]

Elder statesman of sociology Peter Berger writes: [New York mayor Michael Bloomberg] resides in his private apartment on the Upper East Side. His co-resident is a woman to whom he is not married—something that he would probably not get away with as mayor in many other American cities. In an international perspective, however, he is […]