TY  - JOUR
AU  - Heckman,James J.
AU  - Snyder,James M., Jr.
TI  - Linear Probability Models of the Demand for Attributes with an Empirical Application to Estimating the Preferences of Legislators
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 5785
PY  - 1996
Y2  - October 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5785
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5785.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
James J. Heckman
Department of Economics
The University of Chicago
1126 E. 59th Street
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 773/702-0634
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: jjh@uchicago.edu
AB  - This paper formulates and estimates a rigorously-justified linear probability model of binary choices over alternatives characterized by unobserved attributes.  The model is applied to estimate preferences of congressmen as expressed in their votes on bills.  The effective dimension of the attribute space characterizing votes is larger than what has been estimated in recent influential studies of congressional voting by Poole and Rosenthal.  Congressmen vote on more than ideology.  Issue-specific attributes are an important determinant of congressional" voting patterns.  The estimated dimension is too large for the median voter model to describe congressional voting
ER  -