TY  - JOUR
AU  - Glaeser,Edward L.
AU  - Sacerdote,Bruce
TI  - Aggregation Reversals and the Social Formation of Beliefs
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 13031
PY  - 2007
Y2  - April 2007
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13031
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w13031.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Edward L. Glaeser
Department of Economics
315A Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-0575
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: eglaeser@harvard.edu

Bruce Sacerdote
6106 Rockefeller Hall
Department of Economics
Dartmouth College
Hanover, NH 03755-3514
Tel: 603/646-2121
Fax: 603/646-2122
E-Mail: Bruce.I.Sacerdote@dartmouth.edu
AB  - In the past two elections, richer people were more likely to vote Republican while richer states were more likely to vote Democratic.  This switch is an aggregation reversal, where an individual relationship, like income and Republicanism, is reversed at some level of aggregation.  Aggregation reversals can occur when an independent variable impacts an outcome both directly and indirectly through a correlation with beliefs.  For example, income increases the desire for low taxes but decreases belief in Republican social causes.  If beliefs are learned socially, then aggregation can magnify the connection between the independent variable and beliefs, which can cause an aggregation reversal.  We estimate the model's parameters for three examples of aggregation reversals, and show with these parameters that the model predicts the observed reversals.
ER  -