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This chapter explains the differences between primary and secondary data sets. It explains how secondary data sets are typically collected, the ability of large institutions to collect both sizable and representative data sets and their ability to use sophisticated sampling designs in their data collection, how these large data sets can utilize statistical techniques that may not be available to smaller data sets, and differences between cross-sectional and longitudinal data sets.

This chapter summarizes several methodological issues, including certain research design and analysis paradigms, related to the Seattle Longitudinal Study. The discussion begins with a brief exposition of the relationship between cross-sectional and longitudinal data within the context of the general developmental model, followed by a presentation of the rationale for a variety of simple and sequential schemes for data acquisition and analysis. The problems of internal validity of developmental studies and designs for the measurement and control that plague developmental studies are explored. The chapter ends by exploring the relationship between observed measures and latent (unobserved) variables, and how confirmatory (restricted) factor analysis can be applied to assess construct equivalence across cohorts, age, and time in the study of developmental problems.

This chapter presents and explains the five basic problems of using a quantitative research design and methodology in studying the development and performance of the twenty countries over thirty decades: the use of a single, interval-scaled variable in measuring institutional concepts; how indicators do not reflect validity; the time series properties of the cross-sectional data used in the study; the use of significance tests in analysing the ‘populations’ of the countries involved; and the limited number of variables that can be included. The study takes on a theoretical approach to analyse the impact of internationalization of labour relations and the effects of institutional factors. The study's main focus lies on developing new measures for labour relations that fair comparably better while addressing the issues in question.

This chapter examines research in mainstream journals since 2000 to show what and who is most likely to be studied by researchers, and what methods are used in this research. Transformational leadership remains the most extensively researched leadership theory. Most research includes both males and females, targets middlerather than top management, and is conducted within the USA in private sector organizations, with virtually no research in the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). Leadership researchers use a wide range of social science methodologies, most typically surveys and cross-sectional data. Researchers also use field research, laboratory experiments, archival data, qualitative research, and meta-analyses. The chapter closes with a discussion of measurement issues in studying leadership, and an invitation to the reader to access an online site and complete several leadership questionnaires

The life-cycle model yields a number of important empirical predictions about consumption and saving behavior. First, the growth rate of consumption depends on the difference between the expected real interest rate and the rate of time preference and varies with the elasticity of intertemporal substitution. Second, individuals seek to smooth the marginal utility of consumption over time. Third, young consumers should be accumulating resources for retirement, and hence have an adequate level of wealth at retirement. Finally, the elderly should be decumulating resources. To test these predictions, one can draw on a vast array of data on interest rates, consumption, income, and wealth. Some come from time series and national accounts, others from cross-sectional or longitudinal surveys of households. This chapter introduces stylized facts that emerge from a first examination of such data, pointing out the merits but also the drawbacks of the available sources.

Motivated by empirical analyses in economics using repeated cross-sectional data, we propose info-metric methods (IM) for estimation of the parameters of statistical models based on the information in population moment conditions that hold at group level. The info-metric estimation can be viewed as the primary approach to a constrained optimization. The estimators can also be obtained via the dual approach to this optimization, known as generalized empirical likelihood (GEL). In Andrews, Hall, Khatoon and Lincoln (2019), we provide a comprehensive framework for inference based on GEL with the grouped-specific moment conditions. In this chapter, we compare the computational requirements of the primary and dual approaches. We also describe the IM/GEL inference framework in the context of a linear regression model that is estimated using the information that the mean of the error is zero for each group. For the latter setting, we use analytical arguments and a small simulation study to compare the properties of IM/GEL-based inferences to those of inferences based on certain extant methods. The IM/GEL methods are illustrated through an application to estimation of the returns to education in which the groups are defined via information on family background.

This chapter provides a new theoretical approach to the economics of the family taking into account the correlation between total fertility rate and female labor participation. It demonstrates how wages and quality of consumption affect the number of children born. In effect, an alternative explanation is provided which shows that there is a positive correlation between total fertility rate and female labor-participation rate, using Japanese cross-sectional data between 1970 to 2005. It is shown that low fertility is associated with consumption of higher-quality products, which carries with it two affects, namely—creating an attraction toward child-bearing; but at the same time reducing the birthrate by making working more attractive—resulting in a negative correlation between birthrate and consumption.

Chapter 7 tests the life-cycle theory on African Americans and explores the political consequences of their unique constellation of identities—as both ardent Democrats and frequent churchgoers. Because African-American religious traditions are frequently consistent with Democratic economic messages, African Americans may not feel pressure to update their religious or political attachments in the same way that white Americans might. We should therefore expect that the life-cycle theory will have different implications for African Americans. Whereas African Americans should undergo similar religious life-cycle experiences—decreasing religiosity in young adulthood and then increasing religious involvement in adulthood—they should not necessarily feel that their religious and political leanings are in conflict. Empirical tests bear out these expectations. The chapter then considers the political consequences of African Americans' religious and political attachments. The results from two experiments show that although African Americans are comfortable with religion and politics mixing, as one might expect from a highly religious group, they are not open to this mix when Republicans are doing the mixing. This occurs because the political values valorized in black Protestantism differ from those emphasized by religious denominations and groups associated with the Republican Party.

Chapter 6 explores how political knowledge helps create the religious gap. First, the chapter shows that respondents with medium and high levels of political knowledge drive the findings from the previous chapter. In contrast, partisans with little political knowledge did not update their religious attachments to be consistent with their partisanship. Next, the data show that a political knowledge gap, in addition to a partisan gap, exists within churches. If more knowledgeable Republicans select into religion and more knowledgeable Democrats select out of religion, then Americans affiliated with different religious currents should differ both in terms of partisanship and political knowledge. The results indicate that while Republicans who are politically engaged are also more likely to be involved in religion, Democrats who are politically engaged are less likely to be involved with religion. Republicans, therefore, not only attend church more often than Democrats, but church-going Republicans are also more politically engaged than church-going Democrats. Partisan differences in political knowledge and engagement, in turn, change the likelihood that campaigns can successfully mobilize supporters through churches.