TY - JOUR
T1 - Theory and evidence in international conflict
T2 - A response to de marchi, gelpi, and grynaviski
AU - Beck, Nathaniel
AU - King, Gary
AU - Zeng, Langche
PY - 2004/5
Y1 - 2004/5
N2 - In this article, we show that de Marchi, Gelpi, and Grynaviski's substantive analyses are fully consistent with our prior theoretical conjecture about international conflict. We note that they also agree with our main methodological point that out-of-sample forecasting performance should be a primary standard used to evaluate international conflict studies. However, we demonstrate that all other methodological conclusions drawn by de Marchi, Gelpi, and Gryanaviski are false. For example, by using the same evaluative criterion for both models, it is easy to see that their claim that properly specified logit models outperform neural network models is incorrect. Finally, we show that flexible neural network models are able to identify important empirical relationships between democracy and conflict that the logit model excludes a priori; this should not be surprising since the logit model is merely a limiting special case of the neural network model.
AB - In this article, we show that de Marchi, Gelpi, and Grynaviski's substantive analyses are fully consistent with our prior theoretical conjecture about international conflict. We note that they also agree with our main methodological point that out-of-sample forecasting performance should be a primary standard used to evaluate international conflict studies. However, we demonstrate that all other methodological conclusions drawn by de Marchi, Gelpi, and Gryanaviski are false. For example, by using the same evaluative criterion for both models, it is easy to see that their claim that properly specified logit models outperform neural network models is incorrect. Finally, we show that flexible neural network models are able to identify important empirical relationships between democracy and conflict that the logit model excludes a priori; this should not be surprising since the logit model is merely a limiting special case of the neural network model.
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U2 - 10.1017/S0003055404001212
DO - 10.1017/S0003055404001212
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:3042806894
SN - 0003-0554
VL - 98
SP - 379
EP - 389
JO - American Political Science Review
JF - American Political Science Review
IS - 2
ER -