Four essays on the empirical analysis of political ideology

This thesis examines four distinct facets and methods for understanding political ideology, and so it includes four distinct chapters with only moderate connections between them. Chapter 2 examines how reactions to emotional stimuli vary with political opinion, and how the stimuli can produce changes in an individuals political preferences. Chapter 3 examines the connection between self-reported fear and item nonresponse on surveys. Chapter 4 examines the connection between political and moral consistency with low-dimensional ideology, and Chapter 5 develops a technique for estimating ideal points and salience in a low-dimensional ideological space.

A theoretical and empirical study of addiction

Consumption of addictive substances poses a challenge to economic models of rational, forward-looking agents. This dissertation presents a theoretical and empirical examination of consumption of addictive goods.

The theoretical model draws on evidence from psychology and neurobiology to improve on the standard assumptions used in intertemporal consumption studies. I model agents who may misperceive the severity of the future consequences from consuming addictive substances and allow for an agent's environment to shape her preferences in a systematic way suggested by numerous studies that have found craving to be induced by the presence of environmental cues associated with past substance use. The behavior of agents in this behavioral model of addiction can mimic the pattern of quitting and relapsing that is prevalent among addictive substance users.

Chapter 3 presents an empirical analysis of the Becker and Murphy (1988) model of rational addiction using data on grocery store sales of cigarettes. This essay empirically tests the model's predictions concerning consumption responses to future and past price changes as well as the prediction that the response to an anticipated price change differs from the response to an unanticipated price change. In addition, I consider the consumption effects of three institutional changes that occur during the time period 1996 through 1999.