Ecological Inference

This book, first published in 2004, presents social scientific methods for drawing inferences about individuals based on aggregate data.

The last decade and a half has witnessed an explosion of research in ecological inference, the process of trying to infer individual behavior from aggregate data. This book, first published in 2004, brings together a diverse group of scholars to survey methodological strategies for solving ecological inference problems in various fields.Drawing upon the explosion of research in the field, a diverse group of scholars surveys strategies for solving ecological inference problems, the process of trying to infer individual behavior from aggregate data. The uncertainties and information lost in aggregation make ecological inference one of the most difficult areas of statistical inference, but these inferences are required in many academic fields, as well as by legislatures and the Courts in redistricting, marketing research by business, and policy analysis by governments. This wide-ranging collection of essays, first published in 2004, offers many important contributions to the study of ecological inference.