Learning More From Tobit Coefficients: Extending a Comparative Analysis of Political Protest

Tobit analysis is the appropriate strategy for many sociological problems. Unfortunately, clear procedures for interpreting its coefficients are not available. Using Walton and Ragin's (1991) tobit analysis of austerity protests in debtor nations, I show that tobit coefficients can be decomposed into two effects: (1) an effect representing an increase in the severity of protests in countries that have experienced protests, and (2) an effect representing a change in the probability of experiencing an austerity protest in countries that recorded no protests. Finally, an analogue to afully-standardized regression coefficient is defined for tobit coefficients. Decomposing tobit coefficients reveals important additional findings that could not be discernedfrom the ordinary tobit coefficients.