Will Marble

@wpmarble.bsky.social

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Political scientist at the Hoover Institution at Stanford || williammarble.co

Picture of R package documentation for argument called "method": Calibration method, either "plugin" or "bayes". Plug-in estimates use posterior means of predictions and correlations across outcomes to compute logit shifts for calibration. Bayesian estimates compute the logit shifts separately for each posterior draw, which are then summarized. Defaults to "plugin".
Example code that implements a brms multilevel model with multivariate outcomes.
To further illustrate this methodology, we describe several of the as-good-as-random site selection experiments here. In some cases, which of the finalist locations won the college was literally random, with the winning location drawn by lots (this occurred for the University of North Dakota and North Dakota State University). In other cases, such as University of Illinois, Purdue University, and the University of Florida, multiple towns submitted similar bids to receive the college, with only one ultimately chosen. In still other cases, it took multiple rounds of balloting to find a winner (7 rounds of balloting for University of Mississippi, 8 rounds for Southern Arkansas University, 24 rounds for the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a whopping 111 for what would become University of Nebraska at Kearney). The fact that finalist locations were tied for multiple rounds of voting suggests that both the winning and runner-up locations were similar in terms of political influence and enjoyed comparable popular support. Site selection experiments occur as early as 1839 and as late as 1954, though the majority of experiments are concentrated in the 1880s and 1890s.
Screenshot of title page. "The Long-Run Effects of Colleges on Civic and Political Life" by Michael J. Andrews, William Marble, and Lauren Russell. Abstract: Social theorists and education advocates have long argued for the civic benefits of education. As large, durable institutions, universities are especially likely to affect the civic life of their communities. We investigate how the establishment of a university alters the civic and political trajectory of the surrounding area. For identification, we leverage historical site selection processes in which multiple locations were considered for new colleges. We bring together data on social capital, political preferences, and elections to assess the long-run impacts of college establishment. Communities with colleges exhibit higher levels of civic engagement and greater social trust today, relative to “runner-up” locations without colleges. These counties are also more politically liberal — a gap that has grown substantially since 2000. Our findings suggest understanding universities as place-based policies that shape the long-run civic and political development of their communities. They also shed light on current political battles over higher education policy.
Screenshot from WSJ op-ed by Tom Cotton: 'Meanwhile, incredibly, Democrats and the liberal media have again called this outbreak of violence “mostly peaceful protests,” while in the same breath blaming the riots, arson, and looting on President Trump for enforcing immigration law. The New York Times described “largely peaceful” riots with fireworks fired at police, cars set on fire, and more than 150 arrests.'
Title page for a paper called "Migration, Social Ties, and Political Preferences" by William Marble and Junghyun Lim. Abstract: Why have economically declining regions turned toward right-wing parties? To explain this puzzling phenomenon, we develop a theory linking internal migration, localized social institutions (e.g., family and friend networks), and voters’ preferences for social insurance. We start with the observation that social ties provide insurance against adverse life events, such as job loss, and highlight two implications. First, those with strong social networks prefer lower spending on social insurance, because they have access to informal insurance that acts as a substitute for public programs. Second, social ties discourage people from moving, even when better economic opportunities are available in other regions. Combining these mechanisms, we argue that the effect of economic shocks on a region’s politics depends on the strength of social ties.[continued]
Title page for the paper "What Explains Educational Polarization Among White Voters? by William Marble (September 2023). Abstract: Over the past 40 years of American politics, college-educated white voters have defected from the Republican Party, while the white working class has become a reliable source of Republican support. I study the issue basis of this realignment. To do so, I generate over-time estimates of public opinion on four broad issue domains from 1984 to 2020 and develop a theoretical framework to understand how issue attitudes translate into electoral coalitions. Using this framework, I find that both economic and cultural issues have contributed to the observed realignment. College-educated white voters have become increasingly liberal on economic issues since the mid-2000s; college-educated voters now express more liberal views than working class voters on every issue domain. Over the same time period, cultural issues have become more important for the voting decision