Associations and the Exercise of Democratic ... - Citizenship DRC

IDS WORKING PAPER 285Table B.4 Propensity to participate in secular association, Mexico CityParticipateVariable Average Std. devProclivityEmploymentIn labour market (n=603) 0.25 (0.032)Out of labour market (n=663) 0.396 (0.096)Public sector (n=126) 0.57 (0.05)Non-public sector (n=1140) 0.302 (0.096)GenderWomen (n=727) 0.273 (0.072)Men (n=539) 0.404 (0.085)and B.2 are intuitive, we are interested in verifying whether we can use the aboveresults for making conclusions regarding citizen inclination to problem-solve invarious ways. The choice of probit model over logit can be easily defended, as theresiduals from the equations reported in the text approximate normal distribution.More crucial concerns are the problem of endogeneity and selection biasesregarding the impact of associational participation.Fixed effect model: The data set from each city can be thought of as a set ofinformation for a panel of individuals from different regions: districts in the case ofSao Paulo and electoral zones in case of Mexico. These districts could imposeunobserved effects in a homogenous way on individual behaviour within aparticular region. We tested this by running a fixed effect model on the citiesregions. However, a more intuitive way of understanding this is to have regionaldummies and determine their significance for the models in Tables B.1 and B.2. Inthe case of São Paulo (Table B.1), when all regions are included only one region(Grajau) shows significant impact and that is included in the model. Similar findingsfrom Mexico can be reported. We can report no regional effects for both cities.Endogeneity: Another reason for which to question the validity of findings is thatthere may be simultaneous causality in regards to the main hypotheses of thisstudy – participation in associational participation induces greater proclivity towardproblem solving. Yet it could be that agents tend to participate because it is easierto problem solve once there is contact with associations. Thus, the causalrelationship flows two ways. The associational participation in Tables B.1 and B.2 isstrongly influenced by the dependent variable itself; and the reported impacts inthe above tables reflect the dual causal relation. We need instrumental variablesthat identify associational relation and also are independent of proclivity toproblem solve. We do not rely on theoretical justification for the choseninstrumental variables.Variables which qualify as an instrumental variable (IV) are those that do not showa correlation with demand-making. We show the result below for mobilising thegovernment sector to show that endogeneity is weakly present in São Paulo.Results are similar for active citizens. The results are based on un-weighted probitregressions for the main relation.46