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Warsaw 2009: Presentations and short courses

Latent class analysis in identification of relation between optimists and pessimists in Poland based on The State of The Households Survey

Session: Quality of measures for concepts of Social sciences (I)

Authors:

Piotr Bialowolski; Warsaw School of Economics, Poland
Dorota Weziak-Bialowolska; Warsaw School of Economics, Poland

Abstract:

The paper aims at presenting an approach to optimism measurement among Polish households with application of data from a Consumer Tendency Survey (CTS). One of such surveys is conducted at Warsaw School of Economics (The State of The Households Survey) and it is based on a questionnaire harmonized for the EU countries – methodology developed by the European Commission. CTS usually focus on trend analysis and are designed to describe and forecast changes in the consumer behaviour. However, as they measure forecasts of economic situation with application of different indicators (questions) it is also possible to grasp a latent category – optimism.

In this paper authors approach the problem of measuring optimism with application of Latent Class Analysis. It is their objective to determine the number of latent classes that can be distinguished with respect to households’ attitude towards the economic situation. They try to explain the existing pattern referring to the situation in Poland. With application of Latent Transition Analysis they also try to evaluate changes in households’ optimism concerning the economic situation in Poland between 2006 and 2008.