A Quantitative Tour of the Social Sciences

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Format: Paperback
Pub. Date: 2009-04-06
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
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Summary

Social scientists become experts in their own disciplines but aren't always familiar with what is going on in neighboring fields. To foster a deeper understanding of the interconnection of the social sciences, economists should know where historical data come from, sociologists should know how to think like economists, political scientists would benefit from understanding how models are tested in psychology, historians should learn how political processes are studied, psychologists should understand sociological theories, and so forth. This overview by prominent social scientists gives an accessible, non-technical sense of how quantitative research is done in different areas. Readers will find out about models and ways of thinking in economics, history, sociology, political science, and psychology, which in turn they can bring back to their own work.

Table of Contents

Preface: Learning to Think Like a Social Scientistp. ix
About the Contributorsp. xiii
Models And Methods In The Social Sciences
Introduction and Overviewp. 3
What's in a Number? Definitions of Fairness and Political Representationp. 11
The Allure and Limitations of Mathematical Modeling: Game Theory and Trench Warfarep. 20
History
Historical Background of Quantitative Social Sciencep. 35
Sources of Historical Datap. 52
Historical Perspectives on International Exchange Ratesp. 59
Historical Data and Demography in Europe and the Americasp. 83
Economics
Learning from Economic Datap. 99
Econometric Forecasting and the Flow of Informationp. 111
Two Studies of Interest Rates and Monetary Policyp. 134
Sociology
Models and Theories in Sociologyp. 155
Explanations of the Racial Disturbances of the 1960sp. 164
The Time Series of Lynchings in the American Southp. 176
Attainment Processes in a Large Organizationp. 191
Political Science
What Is Political Science?p. 207
The Politics of Supreme Court Nominations: The Critical Role of the Media Environmentp. 223
Modeling Strategy in Congressional Hearingsp. 242
Psychology
Formulating and Testing Theories in Psychologyp. 271
Some Theories in Cognitive and Social Psychologyp. 282
Signal Detection Theory and Models for Trade-Offs in Decision Makingp. 291
To Treat or Not To Treat: Causal Inference in The Social Sciences
The Potential-Outcomes Model of Causationp. 303
Some Statistical Tools for Causal Inference with Observational Datap. 309
Migration and Solidarityp. 319
Referencesp. 327
Indexp. 339
Table of Contents provided by Ingram. All Rights Reserved.

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