[gov2001-l] Recoding variables

I think I have an intuitive sense of the answer to this question, but it's come up in one of the datasets we are trying to replicate so just thought I would canvass others' opinions. Suppose a variable such as "divided government" is coded -1 for unified, 0 for partial, and 1 for divided. After running a regression, the variable is not significant. Is it legitimate then to reassign values such as 0 for unified, 1 for partial, and 255 for divided to produce significant results? My intuition tells me that this would be legitimate only if there is some prior theoretical reason to believe that divided government has 255 times the effect of partial. Is that right? Thanks, Phillip. ------------------------------------------------- Phillip Y. Lipscy Perkins Hall Room #129 35 Oxford Street Cambridge, MA 02138 (617)493-4893 DORM (617)851-8220 CELL lipscy(a)fas.harvard.edu http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~lipscy/ First Year Student, Ph.D. Program Harvard University, FAS, Department of Government -------------------------------------------------