Student Seminar Series - September 27, 2005
University of Minnesota
School of Statistics
College of Liberal Arts
European
Union Membership in Estonia - Who Says "Yes"?
Kaisa Kivilaid
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
1:30 PM, 155
Ford Hall
Minneapolis, East Bank Campus
Refreshments at 1:00 PM
300 Ford Hall
Abstract
Free
elections are the foundation of any democratic country. It is often
beneficial, for both economists and politicians, to study the voting
behavior of people to gain a better understanding of human
decision-making. The current analysis investigates the voting behavior
of Estonians, grouped by municipalities, during the 2003 referendum on
European Union membership. Overall, 66.83% of actual voters said “Yes”,
but this number varies greatly between the 241 municipalities. The
percentage of voters saying “Yes” in each municipality can be described
as a function of several geographical, demographical and economic
variables. The goal of the analysis is to use generalized linear models
for a binomial response to decide which of these variables are
significant for describing how the municipalities with certain
characteristics determine the “Yes” percentage. The analysis shows that
based on the type of municipality (town or rural), the parameters to be
included in the model can differ slightly. I will also investigate the
goodness-of-fit of each model.