Assessing Contextual Measurement Strategies

Velez, Yamil; Wong, Grace

doi:10.1086/691281

Cited by 27 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 8 publications

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“…Because subjective socioeconomic status depends to a great extent on features of an individual's local context, studies conducted at relatively high levels of aggregation may mask important variation, and our evidence appears to support this idea (Velez and Wong, 2017). Most observational studies of local inequality use measures at relatively high levels of geographic aggregation, such as U.S. states (Franko, 2016(Franko, , 2017, counties (Newman et al, 2015;Cheung and Lucas, 2016;Solt et al, 2017;Newman et al, 2018), municipalities (Phillips, 2017;van Holm, 2019), or zip codes (Johnston and Newman, 2016;Page and Goldstein, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 51%

Local exposure to inequality among the poor increases support for taxing the rich

Sands¹,

Kadt²

2019

Preprint

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How does local economic inequality affect the preferences and behaviors of the poor? We present a placebo-controlled field experiment conducted in Soweto, South Africa, that randomly varies exposure to inequality in low socio-economic settings. We find that willingness to sign a petition that calls for higher taxes on the wealthy increases in the presence of a high-status car. To probe the generality of the experimental finding, we combine a representative geo-referenced survey with neighborhood-level census-derived measures of local inequality, a proxy for direct encounters with tangible reminders of economic inequality. Observationally, exposure to inequality among the poor is associated with an increase in support for taxing the wealthy.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 51%

Local exposure to inequality among the poor increases support for taxing the rich

Sands¹,

Kadt²

2019

Preprint

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“… 13 Scholars have used everything from respondent-created boundary maps to government geo-indicators like census tract and county to measure social context (DeSante and Perry 2016; Wong et al 2012; Stolle, Soroka, and Johnston 2008). However, recent work by Velez and Wong (2017) shows that, across an array of measures, zip code most closely approximates people’s perceptions of the racial composition of their “local” community. In fact, zip code even outperforms respondent-constructed boundary maps.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

What Makes a Good Neighbor? Race, Place, and Norms of Political Participation

Anoll

2018

Am Polit Sci Rev

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Social norms are thought to motivate behaviors like political participation, but context should influence both the content and activation of these norms. I show that both race and neighborhood context moderate the social value of political participation in the United States. Using original survey data and a survey experiment, I find that Whites, Blacks, and Latinos not only conceptualize participation differently, but also asymmetrically reward those who are politically active, with minority Americans often providing more social incentives for participation than Whites. I combine this survey data with geographic demography from the American Community Survey and find that neighborhood characteristics outpace individual-level indicators in predicting the social value of political participation. The findings suggest that scholars of political behavior should consider race, place, and social norms when seeking to understand participation in an increasingly diverse America.

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“…More recently, Newman et al (2015) show that residents "receive the treatment"-that is they correctly perceive the number of immigrants as well as the economic conditions of their local community when compared against census measures at the ZIP Code and county levels. 3 Velez and Wong (2017) provide the most insightful study to date regarding the relationship between census measured context and perceived context. They find a strong positive relationship between census measured racial and ethnic composition and perceived racial and ethnic composition, but only when using one's ZIP Code as a boundary.…”

Section: Towards a More Unified Measure Of Contextmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If this is the case, then it is imperative that scholars understand for whom and under what conditions residents receive the contextual stimuli from their surroundings. While Velez and Wong (2017) show that respondents accurately perceive contextual stimuli at one census measured boundaries (ZIP Code), their study is in some ways limited by the use of a general population sample through MTurk. 1 And yet, much of the work that examines context and contextual factors considers racial and ethnic minority groups explicitly.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The treatment works: Revisiting a key link in contextual theories of political behavior

Wilcox-Archuleta

2018

Research & Politics

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The use of self-reported contextual factors is prominent in political science. While recent research demonstrates that perceptions of contextual factors positively associate with census measured factors, it is less clear for whom and under what conditions this relationship holds. In this paper, I examine the relationship between census measured racial and ethnic composition and perceived racial and ethnic neighborhood composition. I use the 2008 and 2012 Collaborative Multi-Racial Post-Election Study (CMPS) datasets and append US Census data to test how well respondents understand the racial and ethnic composition of their neighborhood. Leveraging the non-White oversamples in the CMPS, I am able to test this relationship among Latinos, Blacks, and Whites. I find a positive relationship between perceived neighborhood composition and census measured composition. Respondents who live in areas with higher proportions of a racial/ ethnic group are more likely to perceive that their neighborhood is composed of that group. These findings hold across Black, Latino, and White sub-samples. These findings complement and extend recent work about how well respondents understand their local environment.

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Assessing Contextual Measurement Strategies

Cited by 27 publications

References 8 publications

Local exposure to inequality among the poor increases support for taxing the rich

Local exposure to inequality among the poor increases support for taxing the rich

What Makes a Good Neighbor? Race, Place, and Norms of Political Participation

The treatment works: Revisiting a key link in contextual theories of political behavior

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