Wasserstein 双极化指数：一种新的公众舆论极化度量，及其在跨国对 COVID-19 疫苗接种强制令态度中的应用
The Wasserstein Bipolarization Index: A New Measure of Public Opinion Polarization, with an Application to Cross-Country Attitudes toward COVID-19 Vaccination Mandates
AI总结：
本文基于收入双极化公理化方法提出满足关键公理的 p-Wasserstein 极化指数，并应用于 11 国 COVID-19 疫苗强制令态度，发现美英极化最高、中法印最低。
摘要：
尽管舆论极化这一话题受到媒体、公众舆论研究者和政治学者的广泛关注，但无论是在通俗文献还是学术文献中，该现象本身都尚未得到充分刻画。为研究公众中的舆论极化，研究者通常借助临时性方法和度量（如视觉比较、方差和双峰系数）来比较调查问题受访者的分布，或追踪某一问题回答分布随时间的变化。为改善这一状况，我们借鉴经济学文献中关于收入双极化的公理化方法，明确规定了双极化度量应满足的关键性质：特别是，当分布从中心向两极扩散，和/或在中心下方或上方的聚集程度增加时，该度量应增大。随后我们证明，公众舆论研究中使用的双极化度量未能满足这些公理中的一条或多条。接着，我们提出一个满足我们所列公理的 $p$-Wasserstein 极化指数。该指数度量观测分布与所有质量聚集在量表下端点和上端点的分布之间的不相似性。我们利用该指数考察了 11 个国家公众对政府 COVID-19 疫苗强制令态度的双极化情况，发现美国和英国极化程度最高，中国、法国和印度极化程度最低，其余国家（巴西、澳大利亚、哥伦比亚、加拿大、意大利、西班牙）处于中间位置。
英文摘要：
Although the topic of opinion polarization receives much attention from the media, public opinion researchers and political scientists, the phenomenon itself has not been adequately characterized in either the lay or academic literature. To study opinion polarization among the public, researchers compare the distributions of respondents to survey questions or track the distribution of responses to a question over time using ad-hoc methods and measures such as visual comparisons, variances, and bimodality coefficients. To remedy this situation, we build on the axiomatic approach in the economics literature on income bipolarization, specifying key properties a measure of bipolarization should satisfy: in particular, it should increase as the distribution spreads away from a center toward the poles and/or as clustering below or above this center increases. We then show that measures of bipolarization used in public opinion research fail to satisfy one or more of these axioms. Next, we propose a $p$-Wasserstein polarization index that satisfies the axioms we set forth. Our index measures the dissimilarity between an observed distribution and a distribution with all the mass clustered on the lower and upper endpoints of the scale. We use our index to examine bipolarization in attitudes toward governmental COVID-19 vaccine mandates across 11 countries, finding the U.S and U.K are most polarized, China, France and India the least polarized, while the others (Brazil, Australia, Colombia, Canada, Italy, Spain) occupy an intermediate position.
机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来，可能存在错误，请以论文正文为准。
