2013_12_04 Dennis Dittrich

Meeting over lunch with Dennis Dittrich.

Here's a my summary of our discussion:

• I explained my need for economic expertise, both for the tax theory part as well as for the deliberation (expert panel?, learning phase?). You expressed interest in advising me on that. We'll meet again in late January to see whether you can join my committee, too.
• You agreed that a learning phase may be appropriate, and mentioned pre-loading that to (existing?) online material and suggested to have a second phase to address participants questions.
• You suggested between-groups comparisons, including multi-level analyses. You pointed out that his would require independent observations, ie. no shared plenary sessions, as seem to be the custom in many deliberative formats. You suggested such analyses may require >6 groups. I explained my preference for a longer format, with smaller n, if need be. We later noticed similarities of this design to the suggested q methodology.
• You suggested additional, complementary (economic) experiments, maybe modeling some taxation in a lab. It seems to me that the higher-level decisions (i.e. income vs consumption taxation) are difficult to model in the lab.
• You alluded to Caplan's hypotheses of preferences over beliefs (i.e. ideology) that may also play out here about tax.
• You mentioned lab facilities at Jacobs University for recording small group sessions.
• I am currently considering to apply q methodology to analyse rank-sorted statements before/after the deliberation (following Niemeyer and Dryzek); I haven't fully understood this yet and will discuss it in a new draft, if applicable.

Next steps:

1. I'll send you my current draft in early January, when you will have more time to look over it. (I'll include q methodology if that bears out).
2. We'll meet again in late January to discuss your feedback and a plan for the empirical part.