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Title:	"Turning Points" in the Iraq Conflict: Reversible Jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo in Political Science
Author:	Spirling, Arthur P
Citation:	Spirling, Arthur. 2007. "Turning Points" in the Iraq conflict: Reversible jump Markov chain monte carlo in political science. The American Statistician 61(4): 315-320.
Full Text & Related Files:	Spirling_TurningPoint.pdf (803.1Kb; PDF)
Abstract:	We consider and explore structural breaks in a day-by-day time series of civilian casualties for the current Iraq conflict: an undertaking of potential interest to scholars of international relations, comparative politics, and American politics. We re- view Bayesian change-point techniques already used by political methodologists before advocating and briefly describing the use of reversible-jump Markov chain Monte Carlo techniques to solve the estimation problem at hand. We find evidence of four change points, all associated with increasing violence, approximately contemporaneous with some important state building events. We conclude with a discussion of avenues for future research.
Published Version:	http://dx.doi.org/10.1198/000313007X247076
Terms of Use:	This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAA
Citable link to this page:	http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3425854

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  Peer reviewed scholarly articles from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences of Harvard University

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