Discussion Post: Political Science Regression
A researcher is conducting a study on the causes of democracy The dependent variable is Level of Democracy and coded 0-10 (0-3 are coded as nondemocracies; 4-6 as illiberal regimes; 7-10 are democracies). The four independent variables are Gross Domestic Product (GDP) coded as an interval variable ranging from $1,000-$62,000; Previous Democratization coded 0 if a country did not historically having a democracy before the current transition and 1 if they did; GINI (measuring income equality) Range :0-100 where zero is complete economic equality and 100 is complete inequality; % of GDP from natural resources Range 0-100 where 0 means none of the country's GDP is derived from natural resources and 100 means all of it is.
Suppose that the researcher begins the analysis by running a correlation and obtains Pearson's r coefficients for the relationship between the dependent variable and all independent variables. The coefficients are as follows GDP (.51) Previous Democratization (.04)
GINI (-.22) % of GDP from natural resources (-.68)
What information can we gather for what we would expect to happen if we ran a regression? (i.e. Also, can we determine Causality from this analysis? Explain your answer.
The response should include a reference list. One-inch margins, Using Times New Roman 12 pnt font, double-space and APA style of writing and citations.