Country effects in ISSP-1993 environmental data: Comparison of SEM approaches

Pilar Rivera and Albert Satorra

Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract: Structural equation models (SEM) are commonly used to analyze the relationship between variables some of which may be latent, such as individual ``attitude'' to and ``behavior'' concerning specific issues. A number of difficulties arise when we want to compare a large number of groups, each with large sample size, and the manifest variables are distinctly non-normally distributed. Using an specific data set, we evaluate the appropriateness of the following alternative SEM approaches: multiple group versus MIMIC models, continuous versus ordinal variables estimation methods, and normal theory versus non-normal estimation methods. The approaches are applied to the ISSP-1993 Environmental data set, with the purpose of exploring variation in the mean level of variables of ``attitude'' to and ``behavior'' concerning environmental issues and their mutual relationship across countries. Issues of both theoretical and practical relevance arise in the course of this application.

Keywords: Structural equation models; factors models; MIMIC models; latent variables; multiple group analysis; non-normality; goodness of fit test; environmental data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C10 C21 C31 Q20 Q30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2000-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://econ-papers.upf.edu/papers/458.pdf Whole Paper (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:upf:upfgen:458

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (william.carlson@upf.edu this e-mail address is bad, please contact repec@repec.org).