Postestimation Uncertainty in Limited Dependent Variable Models

Abstract

Many political science research articles that use limited dependent variable models report estimated quantities, in particular, fitted probabilities, predicted probabilities, and functions of such probabilities, without indicating that such estimates are subject to uncertainty. This practice, along with the reporting of “percentage correctly predicted,” can overstate the precision of reported results. In light of this, the present article describes a variety of measures of uncertainty that authors can include alongside estimates generated by limited dependent variable models. It also proposes an alternative to “percentage correctly predicted” and illustrates its calculations with congressional cosponsorship data from Krehbiel (1995).