Description
Book SynopsisThis book provides a systematic exposition of a group-based statistical method for analyzing longitudinal data in the social and behavioral sciences and in medicine. The methods can be applied to a wide range of data, such as that describing the progression of delinquency and criminality over the life course, or changes in income over time.
Trade ReviewNagin's book provides a thorough and accessible treatment of the statistical method for analyzing longitudinal data to which he has contributed so much in the last decade. The hallmark of this method is its identification of a set of distinct trajectories of change over time in order to capture a sample's diversity in patterns of development. Nagin and his colleagues have applied, refined, and extended this approach over the past decade and this book is the culmination that brings it all together. -- D. Wayne Osgood, The Pennsylvania State University
Daniel Nagin's work on developmental trajectories represents a fundamental component of modern thinking about delinquency. Further, as a paradigm for behavior modeling, his approach has great potential throughout the social sciences. This is an important book. -- Steven Durlauf, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments 1. Introduction and Rationale PART I. LAYING OUT THE BASIC MODEL 2. The Basic Model 3. Groups as an Approximation 4. Model Selection 5. Posterior Group-Membership Probabilities PART II. GENERALIZING THE BASIC MODEL 6. Statistically Linking Group Membership to Covariates 7. Adding Covariates to the Trajectories Themselves 8. Dual Trajectory Analysis 9. Concluding Observations References Index
