Question-Order Effects on Presidential Popularity

A methodological experiment is conducted on the same questionthat is used virtually every month in the Gallup Poll to measurepresidential popularity. The point of the experiment is to determinewhether presidential popularity is affected by the placementof the question within the survey, in response to a recent chargethat alternations in the order in which this question has beenasked invalidate time-series analyses of presidential popularity.The primary finding is that the order in which the questionis presented does not significantly affect the direction ofresponse (the balance between approval and disapproval), butit does affect opinionation (the willingness to make a directionalresponse, whether positive or negative). This effect is foundto be particularly pronounced for less educated respondents.The implications of these findings for time series analysisof presidential popularity are spelled out.     

Agenda Setting for the Civil Rights Issue

A comparison of front-page New York Times content and nationalpublic opinion from 1954 to 1976 showed strong agenda-settingeffects for the civil rights issue. For this issue, the optimaleffect span was the four- to six-week period immediately priorto field work. These findings contradict previous findings andassertions about a cumulative media effect over a longer periodof time.     

HOUSEHOLDS' GROCERY SHOPPING BEHAVIOR IN THE SHORT-RUN: THEORY AND EVIDENCE

This paper extends the study of nonmarket work activities to explain the impact of household characteristics on grocery shopping behavior. A constrained utility maximization model is developed and the equilibrium conditions of the model are derived. These conditions and the hypotheses implied by them relating to the determinants of time spent in a grocery shopping trip, the size of a purchase, and the number of such trips within a given period of time were tested using data from a sample which identified the household characteristics of grocery shoppers. In these tests, using two-stage least squares, the theoretical implications of our simultaneous equations model are significantly supported.     

TAX EFFECTS, PRICE EXPECTATIONS AND THE NOMINAL RATE OF INTEREST

This paper investigates the relationship between price expectations, income taxes and the nominal rate of interest in Canada. Our primary approach was to utilize the rational expectations hypothesis to create a synthetic price expectations series and to apply this series to four models of the determination of the nominal rate of interest; the Yohe-Karnovsky model, the Carr-Smith model, the Feldstein-Eckstein model and the Jenkins-Lim model. The analysis is inconclusive with respect to the Darby hypothesis that income tax considerations will cause the nominal rate of interest to increase by more than the increase in the expected rate of inflation.