Multivariate MRP

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Goplerud, Max, Auslen, Michael
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Goplerud, Max
Auslen, Michael
author_facet Goplerud, Max
Auslen, Michael
contents Measuring public opinion at subnational geographies is critical to many theories in political science. Multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) is a popular tool for doing so, although existing work is limited to measuring opinion on a single survey question. We provide a framework for estimating the joint distribution of opinion on multiple questions ("Multivariate MRP"). To do so, we derive a novel method for variational inference in multinomial logistic regression with many random effects. This requires performing variational inference with high-dimensional fixed effects, but we show that this can be done at a low computational cost. We validate this procedure by estimating public opinion by party in the United States and show that existing methods can be improved considerably by adding contextual covariates on the prior levels of party identification. Substantively, we show how the output of multivariate MRP can be used to study representation across multiple policy issues simultaneously.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_03652
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Multivariate MRP
Goplerud, Max
Auslen, Michael
Methodology
Applications
Measuring public opinion at subnational geographies is critical to many theories in political science. Multilevel regression and post-stratification (MRP) is a popular tool for doing so, although existing work is limited to measuring opinion on a single survey question. We provide a framework for estimating the joint distribution of opinion on multiple questions ("Multivariate MRP"). To do so, we derive a novel method for variational inference in multinomial logistic regression with many random effects. This requires performing variational inference with high-dimensional fixed effects, but we show that this can be done at a low computational cost. We validate this procedure by estimating public opinion by party in the United States and show that existing methods can be improved considerably by adding contextual covariates on the prior levels of party identification. Substantively, we show how the output of multivariate MRP can be used to study representation across multiple policy issues simultaneously.
title Multivariate MRP
topic Methodology
Applications
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03652