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Quantitative Cross-national Research Methods

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 1

Section 2.3 no. 64

QUANTITATIVE CROSS-NATIONAL RESEARCH METHODS

Gosta Esping-Andersen
CPIS
Universitat Pompeu Fabra

and

Adam Przeworski
Department of Political Science
New York University

Trade-offs in Quantitative Comparisons

Quantitative nation comparisons pose inevitable trade-offs. One is that much of the
contextual reality of individual nations is sacrificed for the sake of broader
generalization. We fail to capture the uniqueness that defines a nation’s culture,
historical heritage, and endemic logic. The interpretation of a variable may, indeed, only
be possible when its is studied contextually (Ragin, 1987; and Lieberson, 1991).
Boolean analysis, as Ragin argues, helps overcome this dilemma. It has advantages,
such as its ability to build conjunctural models with very few cases, and its ability to
analyze non-events. But it needs to be guided by strong theory and substantial
knowledge, its applicability is limited to relatively few cases, and it may be too biased
in favor of non-additive, conjunctural models. For an empirical application, see Ragin
(1994). See also Section 2.3, no. 72.

A second trade-off has to do with the often limited number of observations available,
especially in studies of advanced (OECD) democracies where the N rarely exceeds 25.
In broader World comparisons, however, the N approaches 200. Many attempt to
supplement few nations with over-time data, as in the case of pooled cross sectional
and time series analyses. As ever longer data series for individual countries become
available, the small N problem will gradually diminish. A 20 year time series for 20
countries yields 400 observations; a 20 year time series for 200 nations yields 4000.

The most serious small N problem, then, occurs where for theoretical or other reasons,
the natural universe is limited. Small samples do not necessarily pose problems of
statistical inference. Strong theory may not require many observations. They do,
however, limit what statistical tools can be brought to bear. Fearon (1991 ) argues that
the smaller the N, the greater the need to make counterfactuals explicit – in other words,
to tighten the theoretical formulation about the precise conditions that will (or will not)
produce an outcome. Vague theory implies uncertainty about the number of contending
explanations (which can grow very large) and about their mutual relationship within a
causal order. The consequence is possible multi-collinearity and, more generally, large
error terms – all of which can only be managed by having more observations. Hence, it
is likely that estimations will yield non-robust results. The less ambiguous the theory,
the less the need for large N’s. Small N’s are therefore an especially acute problem in
disciplines without a firm theoretical architecture, like Sociology or Political Science.
 2

Western (1998a) and Western and Jackman (1994) argue that Bayesian estimation, by
allowing for greater uncertainty, produces more robust results when N’s are few, theory
vague, and explanations are many. For a critique, see Firebaugh (1995); for an
empirical application, contrasting conventional regression with Bayesian estimation, see
Western (1996).

Small N’s can even hold advantages, because a limited nation-sample implies that the
researcher can far more easily gain maximum advantage from diagnostic scrutiny of the
residual plots. A set of systematic outliers, for example, can be easily identified in terms
of their nationhood, and any good comparativist should be able to pin down what
variable(s) drives their deviance from the fitted regression line. Diagnostics on small
samples can approach the advantages of in-depth case studies.

There are, nonetheless, problems inherent in quantitative national comparisons that are
both more generic and potentially more serious than the small N problem. The
remainder of our presentation will focus on qualitative and limited dependent variables,
on selection bias, on lack of independence between observations, and on the problem of
endogeneity of variables.

Qualitative and Limited Dependent Variables

Many dependent variables in cross-national research are either qualitative (assuming

discrete values) or limited (they assume continues values within some range). The
choice whether to measure a variable in a qualitative or continuous way is often
controversial. Bollen and Jackman (1989: 612), for example, argue that difficulties in
classiying some political regimes speak in favor of using continuous scales because
“Dichotomizing democracy blurs distinctions between borderline cases”. In contrast,
Przeworski et.al. (in press) prefer to treat regimes dichotomously or mulitnomially.

Yet, whether the dependent variable is qualitative or limited, the consequences are the
same, namely, the need to use non-linear models. Whether we give political regimes the
values of 0-1 (as do Przeworski et.al, op.cit) or 1-100 (as does Bollen, 1980), it remains
that the value on the dependent variable cannot exceed its maximum when the
independent variable(s) tend to infinity, and it cannot fall below its minimum when
these variables tend to infinity. Linear models, at best, can provide an approximation
within some range of the independent variables.

The standard model when the dependent variable is multinomial is

Pr (Y=j ⏐ X=x) = F(xβ),

where j= 0,1,…,J-1 and F is the cummulative distribution function. Since such models
are treated by any standard textbook (such as Greene, 1997), we need not present them
here. Such models can be applied to panel data unless the number of repeated
observations is large.
 3

‘Event history analysis’ is one particular class of non-linear models applied in cross-
national research. 1 In such models the dependent variable is an event, such as a
revolution, regime transition, or a policy adoption. The general model is

Pr [Y(t+dt)=j] = f[y(t), x(t) β], dt → 0

Most often, such models can be conveniently estimated as

log S (t) = log [1-F(t)],

where S (t) is the survival function, or the probability that an event lasts beyond time t,
and F (t) is the cdf. 2 See Section 2.3, no. 53.

For dichotomous dependent variables, logit and probit give very similar results. For
multinomial variables, it is often assumed that the errors are independent across the
values of the dependent variable, which leads to a logit specification. But this implies a
strong assumption, namely the irrelevance of independent alternatives, that rarely holds
in practice (Schmertmann, 1994). Multinomial probit, in turn, requires computing
multiple integrals, which was until recently computationally expensive. Alternatives
would be semi- and non-parametric methods.

The distributions which are commonly used in estimating survival models include the
exponential, Weibul, logistic, and Poisson distributions. The difficulty here is that it is
very difficult to statistically distinguish between such distributions (with the exception
of the Weibull and exponential). The Poisson distribution should be favored when the
events are rare.

Methods for studying qualitative dependent variables are now standard textbook fare,
but what warrants emphasis is that the traditional distinction between ‘qualitative’ and
‘quantitative’ research is becoming increasingly obsolete. Phenomena such as social
revolutions may be rare, but this just means they occur with a low probability. They
can, nevertheless, be studied systematically using maximum likelihood methods.

The Problem of Selection Bias

In comparative research we are often interested in the effect of some systemic feature,
institution, or policy on some outcome. Examples include the effect of labor market
institutions on unemployment, the effect of political regimes on economic growth, or
the effect of electoral rules on the number of political parties.

In such cases, the question is how some feature of X affects some outcomes Y in the
presence of conditions Z, or PR (Y | X,Z), where the hypothesis is that y = f(x). The
generic problem is how to isolate the effects of X and Z on Y.

If sampling is exogenous (i.e. the probability of observing any y is independent of z),

the pr (Y=y |z) = pr (y), and standard statistical methods can be used. But if pr (Y= y |z)

1
For an example, see Usui (1994)
2
Again, we refer to standard textbooks for details.
 4

is different under different conditions Z, sampling is endogenous and the assumptions of

the standard statistical model are violated. For a detailed treament, see Section 2.3, no.
87.

To exemplify the problem: suppose we want to know the impact of political regimes on
economic growth. We observe Chile in 1985 (Z), which was a dictatorship (X), in
which case per capita income declined at the rate of Y= -2.26. To assess the effect of
political regimes, we need to know what would have been the rate of growth (Y) in
Chile had it been a democracy. This cannot be answered with the available observations
because Chile in 1985 was indeed a dictatorship. The comparativist in such a case
would proceed quasi-experimentally, and look for a case that matches Chile in all
aspects except authoritarianism. In this way one would compare an authoritarian with a
democratic ‘Chile’.

But what if Chile’s status as a dictatorship in 1985 was due to some factors that also
affected its economic performance? This could be because growth itself influences the
survival of regimes; a country’s level of development may be associated both with
regime selection and growth; some unobservable factors (say ‘enlightened leadership’
or, perhaps, measurement error) may be common to both variables. Whatever the
underlying selection mechanism, the basic consequence is that there will be cases
without a match, and this implies that our inferences will be biased.

The problem raised by non-random selection is how to make inferences from what we
observe to what we do not. It is a problem of identification (Manski, 1995). For what do
we know when we observe Chile as a dictatorship in 1985? We observe the fact that,
given conditions Z, the Chilean regime (X) is a dictatorship. We also know its rate of
economic growth, given that it is a dictatorship under conditions Z. We do not observe,
however, its rate of growth as a democracy under conditions Z. The issue is one of
counterfactual observations: the rate of growth that an observation with Z = zi ,
observed under dictatorship, would have had under democracy. We do not know what
this value is and, hence, we face under-identification.

What we need to know are two distributions, P(Y=y | x=j, Z) and P(Y=y | x=k, Z), and
their expected values, where we now think of the possible values of X more generally as
j,k = 0,1,2,…,N. The first is the distribution of Y in the entire population if all cases
were observed as dictatorships; the second is the distribution of Y in the entire
population if all cases were observed as democracies. Clearly, if we want to know the
impact on y of being in states x, we need to determine the difference between these two
distributions, conditional on z.

It may seem strange to refer to the ‘population’ as including unobserved cases. But in
order to compare the effects of states x on the performance of an individual case
characterized by a zi , we must allow the case to be potentially observable under the full
range of X. 3 We observed this case as X = j, but must also imagine the possibility that
it would have been X ≠ j. We must think in terms of a ‘super-population’ consisting of
a continuum of potential cases. The actual sample is then regarded as having been
drawn by ‘nature’ from this super-population (Pudney, 1989: 45).

3
Note that in our example X assumes only two values. But, generically, this is not necessary.
 5

If the actual population is an exogenous sample of the potential one, any multivariate
combination (xi, zi) can be drawn with a positive probability. Such exogenous sampling
allows us to isolate the effect of x on y given z, that is, to ‘control’ for z the effects of x
on y. If the sample is exogenous, we can ‘match’ pairs (xi = j, zi) and (xi = k, zi). But if
sampling is endogenous, there will be some cases without a ‘match’: some of the xi ‘s
will not have support. Where we have non-random selection, quasi-experimental
comparisons fail regardless of the number of observations.

The methods to correct for selection bias consist of constructing counterfactuals, that is,
of filling the unobserved supports of the distribution Y for all X. Following Heckman
(1979), when sampling is not random, the regressions y = f(x,z) suffer from omitted
variable bias. When such regressions are estimated on the basis of the observed sample,
the variable that is omitted is the expected value of the error in the equation that
specifies how the observations are selected into the sample:

Pr (x=j) = F(Zα) + u.

If E (uj | x=j) ≠ 0, then

E (uj | x) = σjuE (u | x),

where σju is a regression coefficient of uj on u.

Finally, E (u | x=j) = λj, where the λj ‘s are the inverse Mill ratios, or the hazard rates.

Since we know that Yj is observed when x=j, we can write the expected values in the
observed sample as

E (yj | x=j, z) = zβj + σju λj .

Note that if this equation is estimated on the basis of the observed sample, the variable
λj is omitted from the specification.

We can now see why controlling for the variables that enter both into selection and
outcome equations may indeed worsen the selection bias (Achen, 1986). Following
Heckman (1988), we distinguish first between selection on observables and on
unobservables. Selection on observables occurs when the expected covariance E (uju |
z) ≠ 0, but once the observed variables Z are controlled for it vanishes, so that E (uju |
z) = 0. Selection is on unobservables when E (uju) ≠ 0 and E (uju | z) ≠ 0, which means
that controlling for the factors observed by the investigator does not remove the
covariance between the errors in the outcome and the selection equations. Now note
that the regression coefficient σju = cov (uju)/var (uj). If selection is on unobservables,
controlling for some variable x in the outcome equation may reduce the error variance uj
without equally reducing the covariance uju. Hence, the coefficient on the omitted
variable will be larger and the bias will be exacerbated.

In short, the expected values of the observed cases will be biased because they covary
with the variable which determines which cases are observed. If selection is exclusively
 6

on observables, this bias can be corrected by traditional controlling techniques. But if it

is on unobservables, such controls only worsen the bias.

Correcting for selection bias is not uncontroversial. It has been found that corrections
for selection are not robust, but are highly sensitive to relatively minor changes in
assumptions about distributions (Goldberger, 1983). Others have found that some
estimation methods fail to correct for this bias and may even exacerbate it (Stolzenberg
and Relles, 1990). As Heckman (1988: 7) argues, the quandary we face is that different
methods of correcting for selection bias are robust if there is no bias to begin with; if
there is, there is no guarantee that the methods are robust.

The logic of the problem is similar whether we study large or small N’s (Fearon, 1991).
When de Toqueville concluded that revolutions do not bring about social change, the
reason might be that they occur only in countries where it is difficult to change society.
Even when N=1, the issue of selection bias does not disappear: The French revolution
in 1789 may have been caused by the same conditions that made social change so
difficult. It is possible that a revolution in a country where social relations are easier to
change would have provoked change. But then a revolution would not have been
necessary.

Comparativists who conduct case studies cannot benefit from statistical distributions to
generate the counterfactuals. Yet, as in all cases of comparison the problem remains and
it should, therefore, be standard practice to ask counterfactual questions of one’s case or
cases.

The Problem of Independence

Statistical inference must assume that the observations on a variable are independent
one of the other. Is country A ‘s performance truly independent of what happens in
country B? Is what happens at t+1 independent of events in t? Usually not, and this
implies the need for corrective procedures. In most cases, however, rigorous correction
will entail that the de facto N (nations or years) diminishes; in some instances,
statistical dependency cannot be resolved at all.

Cross-sectional analysis almost invariably assumes that nations and their properties (say
budgets or institutions) are independent one of the other. This should not be assumed.
We know that the Scandinavian countries have a similar and shared history, deliberately
learning from each other through centuries, thus creating similar institutions and path
dependencies. The same goes for Austria and Germany, for Belgium and the
Netherlands and, arguably, for all the Anglosaxon nations. The issue is captured in
Castles’ (1993) ‘families of nations’. World samples have a similar problem: Japan’s
long hegemony in East Asia will have influenced Korean society; Confucianism has had
a pervasive influence throughout the region. Similar stories are easily told for Latin
America and Africa. If the World is a set of nation clusters, the real N is not 20-odd
OECD countries or 150-odd World nations.

When nations form families, but are treated as if they were all unique and independent,
we are likely to get biased coefficients and, very probably, unequal error variance
(heteroskadisticity). Sweden alone will drive the regression line in just about any
 7

welfare state analysis, and when also Denmark and Norway are treated as discrete
observations, the bias is multiplied in so far as all three in reality form part of the same
political economy (‘Scandinavia’). Diffusion effects that operate between members of a
nation-cluster can also result in heteroskadistic disturbance in the cross-section. Such
can be corrected by, for example, adding a variable that captures the common
underlying property that drives the disturbance (say, a dummy for being ‘Scandinavia’)
but, again, this correction absorbs precious degrees of freedom in a small N study and,
substantively, amounts to reducing the three nations to one observation. One attempt to
estimate comparative models in which it is presumed that nations cluster can be found
in Esping-Andersen (1999).

Lack of independence in a time-series is normally taken for granted, since this year’s
budget or election outcome is almost inevitably related to last year’s budget or the
previous election. The standard assumption is a first-order (AR1) serial correlation. In
comparative research virtually all time-series applications are pooled with cross-
sections. But, where N’s are very small, one may as well simply compare across
individual time-series estimations, as do Abraham and Hausman (1994), or Esping-
Andersen and Sonnberger (1991). Time-series are meant to capture historical process.
Yet as Isaac and Griffin (1989) argue, they easily end up being a-historical.

Pooling cross-sectional with time series data (panel regressions) has become very
widespread, especially in studies of the limited group of advanced (OECD) societies. In
many cases, the panel design is chiefly cross-sectional (more nations than years), as
exemplified by Alvarez et.al. (1991), and Iversen and Wren (1998); others are
temporally dominated (as in the case of Hicks, 1994a; or Hicks and Swank, 1992; for a
discussion, see Stimson, 1985). Panel models are especially problematic because they
can contain simultaneous diachronic and spatial interdependence and, worse, the two
may interact. The standard method for correcting contemporaneous error correlation
(GLS) applies only where the t’s well exceed nations (which is rare). The consequence
is that t-statistics are overestimated, errors underestimated, and the results may therefore
not be robust (Hicks, 1994b; Beck and Katz ,1995) . The Beck and Katz (1995)
procedure, can correct for temporal and cross-sectional dependency one at a time, but if
the two interact, no solution exists. See also Beck et.al (1998) for an application to
maximum likelihood estimation.

Panel models can be based on two types of theoretical justification. One is that events
or shocks occur over time that affect the cross-sectional variance. There is, for
example, a huge recent literature on the impact of labor market ‘rigidities’ on
unemployment: regulations vary across nations but also across time because of de-
regulatory legislation (see for example Nickell, 1997). De-regulation in a country
should produce a break in its time series, and the auto-correlation element will be split
into the years preceding and following the break. The second justification, not often
exploited, is to interpret autocorrelation as an expression of institutional or policy path
dependency. In this instant, the rho must be treated as a variable. The problem, of
course, is that the rho is likely to combine theoretically relevant information as well as
unknown residual autocorrelation. The researcher can accordingly not avoid including a
variable that explicitly measures path dependency.

If we insist on faithful adherance to the real World, panel regressions will require so
much correction against dependency that the hard-won additional degrees of freedom
 8

that come with a time-series are easily eaten up. And how many can truthfully claim
that time and country dependencies do not interact? Indeed, most sensible
comparativists would assume they do: if nations form part of families it should also be
the case that the timing of their shocks, events, or policies is interdependent. Such
intractable problems are certainly much more severe in small-N comparisons, and this is
reflected in the prevailing lack of robustness that is endemic in the ‘OECD area’
literature. In Beck and Katz’ (1995) re-estimations of the Hicks and Swank (1992)
study, to give an example, several key variables turned out insignificant. A marginal
difference in measurement, the inclusion or exclusion of one country, the addition or
subtraction of a year here or there, or the substitution of one variable for another, can
change the entire model.

One alternative is to construct multi-level models which explicitly take into account the
possibility that nations may ‘cluster’ (for an overview, see Goldstein, 1987).
Nieuwbeerta and Ultee (1999) have, for example, estimated a three level (nation, time,
and individual) model of the impact of class on party choice within the context of
nations’ social mobility structure. A second alternative, in particular when the
dependent variable is categorical, is to exploit the advantages of event history analysis.
But, here the time series needs to be quite long considering that theoretically interesting
events, such as revolutions, democratization, or even welfare reforms, are far between.
In the event history context, analytical priority is usually given to temporal change,
which brings it much closer to traditional time series analysis. But rather than having to
manipulate autocorrelation, time sequencing (states and events) is actively modelled
and thus gains analytic status. For an application to nation comparisons, see Strang
(1994), Usui (1994) and, especially Western (1998b), which also can stand as an
exemplar of how to minimize the interdependency problem. See also Section 2.3, no.
53.

There are two particular cases where the lack of independence among observations
simply prohibits adequate estimation. The first, noted above, occurs when time and
nation dependencies interact. The second is when ‘globalization’ penetrates all nations
and when many nations (such as the European Union) become subsumed under
identical constraints. In this instance, existing cross-national correlations will strenthen
and we may, indeed be moving towards an N=1. Of course, global shocks or European
Union membership do not necessarily produce similar effects on the dependent variable
across nations or time. If nations’ institutional filters differ, so will most likely the
impact of a global shock on, say, national unemployment rates. Here we would specify
interaction effects, but that would be impossible in a pure cross-section, and extremely
difficult in a time series, unless we already know how the lag structure will differ
according to institutional variation.

4. The Endogeneity Problem

All probabilistic statistics require conditional independence, namely that the values of
the predictor variables are assigned independently of the dependent variable. The basic
problem of endogeneity occurs when the explanans (X) may be influenced by the
explanandum (Y) or both may be jointly influenced by an unmeasured third. The
endogeneity problem is one aspect of the broader question of selection bias discussed
 9

earlier. General overviews of the endogeneity problem can be found in Manski (1995)
and King, Keohane and Verba (1994). See also Section 2.3., no. 88.

The endogeneity issue has been intensely debated within the economic growth literature
in terms of the causal relationship between technology and growth. But it applies
equally to many fields. For example, comparativists often argue that left power explains
welfare state development. But are we certain that left power, itself, is not a function of
strong welfare states? Or, equally likely, are both large welfare states and left power
just two faces of the same coin, different manifestations of one underlying, yet un-
defined, phenomenon? Would Sweden have had the same welfare state even without its
legendary social democratic tradition? Perhaps, if Sweden’s cultural past
overdetermines its unique kind of social democracy and social policy. If this kind of
endogeneity exists, the true X for Sweden is not left power but a full list of all that is
‘Sweden’. The vector of the X’s becomes a list of all that is nationally unique.

The endogeneity problem becomes easily intractable in quantitative cross-national

research because we observe variables ( Y’s and X’s) that represent part of the reality of
the nations we sample. Our variables are in effect a partial reflection of the society
under study, and the meaning of a variable score for one nation may not be metrically
equivalent to that of another – a weighted left cabinet score of 35 for Denmark and 40
for Sweden probably misrepresents the Danish-Swedish difference if, that is, the two
social democracies are two different beasts.

A related, and equally problematic, issue arises in the interpretation of coefficient

estimations. In the simple cross-sectional regression, the coeffient for left power,
economic development or for coordinated bargaining can only be interpreted in one
way: as a constant, across-the-board effect irrespective of national context. If Denmark
had 5 points more left power, its welfare state should match the Swedish (all else held
constant). In fixed-effects panel regressions, the X’s are assumed to have an identical
impact on Y, irrespective of country. Can we really accept such assumptions? Probably
not.

The reason that we cannot is that it is difficult to assume that variables, say a bargaining
institution or party power balance, will produce homogenous, monotonically identical,
effects across nations for the simple reason that they are embedded in a more complex
reality (called nation) which has also given rise to its version of the dependent variable.
In this case, the bias remains equally problematic whether we study few or many N’s; it
will not disappear if we add more nations.

Quantitative national comparisons rarely, if ever, address such endogeneity problems.

Studies of labor market or economic performance routinely presume that labor market
regulations or bargaining centralization are truly exogenous variables, whose effects on
employment is conditionally identical whether it is Germany, Norway or the United
States (well-known examples are Calmfors and Driffill, 1988; Hicks and Kenworthy,
1999). The same goes for welfare state comparisons with their belief that demography
and left power are fully exogenous and conditionally unitary (for example, Wilensky,
1975; Pampel and Williamson, 1989).

There exist several, not necessarily efficient, ways of correcting for the endogeneity
bias. If we have some incling that the bias comes from variable ommission, the obvious
 10

correction entails the inclusion of additional controls. An example of this kind was
Jackman’s (1986) argument that Norway’s North Sea Oil was over-determining the
results in the Lange and Garrett (1985) study. Small N studies with strong endogeneity
have little capacity to extend the number of potentially neccessary controls. A second
approach is to limit endogeneity in X by re-conceptualizing and, most likely, narrowing
Y. The welfare state literature provides a proto-typical example: aggregate social
expenditure was increasingly replaced by measures of specific welfare state traits.

Controls, no matter how many, will however not resolve the problem under conditions
of strong sampling bias. As discussed above, the best solution in such a situation is to
concentrate more on the theoretical elaboration of causal relations between variables. If
we can assume that our estimations are biased because Y affects the values on X, or
because both are jointly attributable to a third underlying force, thinking in
counterfactual terms (‘would Sweden’s welfare state be the same without Sweden’s
social democracy’) will force the researcher to identify more precisely the direct or
derived causal connections (Lieberson, 1987; Fearon, 1991). If bias can be assumed to
come from the assumption of monotonically homogeneous effects of the X across all
nations, the researcher’s attention should concentrate on identifying more precisely the
conditional mechanisms that are involved in the causal passage from an X to a Y (why
and how will a 5 point rise in left power make the Danish welfare state converge with
the Swedish?).

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