A widely used approach to estimating models of this type is an ordered
response model, which almost allows employs the probit link function. This
model is thus often referred to as the ‘‘ordered probit’’ model. Like many
models for qualitative dependent variables, this model has its origins in
bio-statistics (Aitchison and Silvey 1957) but was brought into the social
sciences by two political scientists (McKelvey and Zavoina 1975; both PhD
candidates at the University of Rochester at the time, incidentally).