It doesn't matter which policy you're evaluating or what outcome you're considering, referees and seminar participants will always be concerned that states adopting a new policy will by coincidence (or not so much by coincidence) adopt other policies at the same time that may be driving your results. Another possibility is that states adopt new polices in response to changing characteristics of the population---and these changes are driving the variation of your outcomes. It is impossible for researchers to control for all changes in policies and all demographic characteristics, but we can certainly assuage concerns by adding to our models controls for changes in other policies or demographic characteristics. And good news: thanks to the folks at IPPSR, you can find data on many of these things in one easy to use data set! Below is the suggested citation and you can click on the link for more information:
Suggested Citation:
Jordan, Marty P. and Matt Grossmann. 2017. The Correlates of State Policy Project v.2.0. East Lansing, MI: Institute for Public Policy and Social Research (IPPSR).
PS
Advanced undergrads and beginner graduate students looking for data and a paper topic for a term paper, I bet that perusing through the data may inspire many great ideas!
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