Time Series Analysis For The Social Sciences

Time series, or longitudinal, data are ubiquitous in the social sciences. Unfortunately, analysts often treat the time series properties of their data as a nuisance rather than a substantively meaningful dynamic process to be modeled and interpreted. Time Series Analysis for the Social Sciences provides accessible, up-to-date instruction and examples of the core methods in time series econometrics. Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier, John R. Freeman, Jon C. Pevehouse and Matthew P. Hitt cover a wide range of topics including ARIMA models, time series regression, unit-root diagnosis, vector autoregressive models, error-correction models, intervention models, fractional integration, ARCH models, structural breaks, and forecasting. This book is aimed at researchers and graduate students who have taken at least one course in multivariate regression. Examples are drawn from several areas of social science, including political behavior, elections, international conflict, criminology, and comparative political economy.

McCleary and Hay have made time series analysis techniques -- the Box-Jenkins or ARIMA methods -- accessible to the social scientist. Rejecting the dictum that time series analysis requires substantial mathematical sophistication, the authors take a clearly written, step-by-step approach. They describe the logic behind time series analysis, and its possible applications in impact assessment, causal modelling and forecasting, multivariate time series and parameter estimation.

"This book focuses on fundamental elements of time-series analysis that social scientists need to understand to employ time-series analysis for their research and practice. Avoiding extraordinary mathematical materials, this book explains univariate time-series analysis step-by-step, from the preliminary visual analysis through the modeling of seasonality, trends, and residuals to the prediction and the evaluation of estimated models. Then, this book explains smoothing, multiple time-series analysis, and interrupted time-series analysis. At the end of each step, this book coherently provides an analysis of the monthly violent-crime rates as an example."--Provided by publisher.

Interrupted Time Series Analysis develops a comprehensive set of models and methods for drawing causal inferences from time series. It provides example analyses of social, behavioral, and biomedical time series to illustrate a general strategy for building AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) impact models. Additionally, the book supplements the classic Box-Jenkins-Tiao model-building strategy with recent auxiliary tests for transformation, differencing, and model selection. Not only does the text discuss new developments, including the prospects for widespread adoption of Bayesian hypothesis testing and synthetic control group designs, but it makes optimal use of graphical illustrations in its examples. With forty completed example analyses that demonstrate the implications of model properties, Interrupted Time Series Analysis will be a key inter-disciplinary text in classrooms, workshops, and short-courses for researchers familiar with time series data or cross-sectional regression analysis but limited background in the structure of time series processes and experiments.

Since the 1970s social scientists and scientists in a variety of fields - psychology, sociology, education, psychiatry, economics and engineering - have been interested in problems that require the statistical analysis of data over time and there has been in effect a conceptual revolution in ways of thinking about pattern and regularity. This book is a comprehensive introduction to all the major time-series techniques, both time-domain and frequency-domain. It includes work on linear models that simplify the solution of univariate and multivariate problems. The author begins with a non-mathematical overview: throughout, he provides easy-to-understand, fully worked examples drawn from real studies in psychology and sociology. Other, less comprehensive, books on time-series analysis require calculus: this presupposes only a standard introductory statistics course covering analysis of variance and regression. The chapters are short, designed to build concepts (and the reader's confidence) one step at a time. Many illustrations aid visual, intuitive understanding. Without compromising mathematical rigour, the author keeps in mind the reader who does no have an easy time with mathematics: the result is a readily accessible and practical text.

Introducing time series methods and their application in social science research, this practical guide to time series models is the first in the field written for a non-econometrics audience. Giving readers the tools they need to apply models to their own research, Introduction to Time Series Analysis, by Mark Pickup, demonstrates the use of—and the assumptions underlying—common models of time series data including finite distributed lag; autoregressive distributed lag; moving average; differenced data; and GARCH, ARMA, ARIMA, and error correction models. “This volume does an excellent job of introducing modern time series analysis to social scientists who are already familiar with basic statistics and the general linear model.” —William G. Jacoby, Michigan State University

Design and Analysis of Time Series Experiments develops methods and models for analysis and interpretation of time series experiments while also addressing recent developments in causal modeling. Unlike other time series texts, it integrates the statistical issues of design, estimation, and interpretation with foundational validity issues. Drawing on examples from criminology, economics, education, pharmacology, public policy, program evaluation, public health, and psychology, this text addresses researchers and graduate students in a wide range of the behavioral, biomedical, and social sciences.

Over the last 15 years, singular spectrum analysis (SSA) has proven very successful. It has already become a standard tool in climatic and meteorological time series analysis and well known in nonlinear physics and signal processing. However, despite the promise it holds for time series applications in other disciplines, SSA is not widely known among statisticians and econometrists, and although the basic SSA algorithm looks simple, understanding what it does and where its pitfalls lay is by no means simple. Analysis of Time Series Structure: SSA and Related Techniques provides a careful, lucid description of its general theory and methodology. Part I introduces the basic concepts, and sets forth the main findings and results, then presents a detailed treatment of the methodology. After introducing the basic SSA algorithm, the authors explore forecasting and apply SSA ideas to change-point detection algorithms. Part II is devoted to the theory of SSA. Here the authors formulate and prove the statements of Part I. They address the singular value decomposition (SVD) of real matrices, time series of finite rank, and SVD of trajectory matrices. Based on the authors' original work and filled with applications illustrated with real data sets, this book offers an outstanding opportunity to obtain a working knowledge of why, when, and how SSA works. It builds a strong foundation for successfully using the technique in applications ranging from mathematics and nonlinear physics to economics, biology, oceanology, social science, engineering, financial econometrics, and market research.

This book shows how to model the spatial interactions between actors that are at the heart of the social sciences.

This book gives the reader the basic knowledge of the theory of random processes necessary for applying to study climatic time series. It contains many examples in different areas of time series analysis such as autoregressive modelling and spectral analysis, linear extrapolation, simulation, causality, relations between scalar components of multivariate time series, and reconstructions of climate data. As an important feature, the book contains many practical examples and recommendations about how to deal and how not to deal with applied problems of time series analysis in climatology or any other science where the time series are short.