Getting things done
The Selective Enforcement of Government Regulation: Battleground States and the EPA
Huseyin Gulen & Brett Myers
Purdue University Working Paper, August 2016
Abstract:
This paper examines whether government regulation is selectively enforced. In the United States, the Electoral College system determines the outcome of presidential elections. This system creates incentives for politicians to direct policy favors to those states that represent the median voter in the Electoral College (so-called "battleground" or "swing" states). In this paper, we examine whether regulators treat battleground states more favorably than non-battleground states. Specifically, we examine the probability that the EPA will find a facility in violation of the Clean Water Act if it is located in a battleground state relative to those located in non-battleground states. We find that violation rates for facilities located in battleground states are significantly lower than those in non-battleground states. Identification is obtained by the analysis of the violation rates of similar facilities located across the border between battleground and non-battleground states using a number of analytical frameworks, including difference-in-difference estimates for facilities located in states that change battleground status.
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Forecasting the Senate vote on the Supreme Court vacancy
Scott Basinger & Maxwell Mak
Research & Politics, July 2016
Abstract:
This paper forecasts current senators' votes on Merrick Garland's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court, in the unlikely case that a vote actually takes place. The forecasts are necessarily conditional, awaiting measurement of the nominee's characteristics. Nonetheless, a model that combines parameters estimated from existing data with values of some measurable characteristics of senators - particularly their party affiliations, party loyalty levels, and ideological positions - is sufficient to identify potential swing voters in the Senate. By accounting for a more nuanced and refined understanding of the confirmation process, our model reveals that if President Obama were to nominate almost any nominee (conservative or liberal) today, that nominee would be rejected if a vote was allowed to take place. So why nominate anyone at all? Obama's hope for a successful confirmation must come from the stochastic component, that is, from outside the traditional decision-making calculus.
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Ahmed Tahoun & Florin Vasvari
London Business School Working Paper, August 2016
Abstract:
Using a unique dataset provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), we document a direct channel through which financial institutions contribute to the net worth of members of the U.S. Congress, particularly those sitting on the finance committees in the Senate and the House of Representatives. These individuals report greater levels of leverage and new liabilities as a proportion of their total net worth, relative to when they are not part of the finance committee or relative to other congressional members. Politicians increase new liabilities by over 30% of their net worth in the first year of their finance committee membership. We do not find similar patterns for members of non-finance powerful committees. We find no evidence that finance committee members arrange new personal liabilities ahead of their appointments to the committees. Finance committee members also report liabilities with lower interest rates and longer maturities. Finally, focusing on banks that lend to U.S. Congress members, we find that the weaker performing financial institutions lend to more finance committee members and provide more new debt to these politicians. Our findings suggest that lenders may create political connections with finance committee members in an attempt to obtain regulatory benefits.
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Policy Uncertainty and the Economy
Kevin Hassett & Joseph Sullivan
American Enterprise Institute Working Paper, August 2016
Abstract:
This paper assesses the economics literature on policy uncertainty, addresses puzzles in that literature, and highlights pertinent empirical regularities. Although much progress has been made in identifying important correlations between uncertainty and economic activity, concerns about causal identification remain. However, new empirical measures of uncertainty allow economists to ask questions with a precision likely to advance enduring debates on sources of uncertainty and their effects. The implications of elevated political polarization offer the most parsimonious explanation of what are otherwise puzzling results on the economic effects of uncertainty. According to historical data, in the month of a United States presidential election, the odds of the U.S. entering a recession within the next 12 months are roughly twice what they are in a typical month.
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James Garand, Rebekah Myers & Renee Renegar
Public Choice, forthcoming
Abstract:
Payne (1991a) postulates that there is a "culture of spending" in the US Congress, whereby members of Congress are socialized to increase their roll-call support for more spending as a function of length of service and exposure to the Washington culture. In this article we develop and test an expanded model of roll-call voting on spending matters, focusing on two potential sources of socialization effects: (1) exposure to the Washington culture of spending, primarily through seniority and proximity to Washington, DC, and (2) previous political experiences developed before members are elected to Congress. Using data for US House members from the 93rd through the 107th Congresses, we estimate a series of models in which we explain National Taxpayer Union scores as a function of seniority, previous political experience, personal attributes, and a range of constituency variables. We find strong and consistent seniority and political experience effects, with senior members and those with extensive political experience more likely to support greater spending than other members. These findings withstand a range of robustness tests.
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Anthony Madonna, James Monogan & Richard Vining
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Presidents often see a Supreme Court nomination as an opportunity to leave a lasting mark on policy. Recent studies speculate that focusing on Supreme Court nominees affects presidential success beyond the confirmation process, but this has not been established systematically. We develop and test a hypothesis stating that presidents who get into a battle to promote a controversial Supreme Court nominee will see delays and failures in their efforts to promote their legislative agenda in the Senate and fill lower level judicial vacancies. We test our theory using data on presidential policy agenda items from 1967 to 2010 and lower level judicial nominations from 1977 to 2010. We find that increased efforts in promoting confirmation reduce the likelihood of timely Senate approval of important policy proposals and nominees to federal district courts.
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Jowei Chen & David Cottrell
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
What is the effect of gerrymandering on the partisan outcomes of United States Congressional elections? A major challenge to answering this question is in determining the outcomes that would have resulted in the absence of gerrymandering. Since we only observe Congressional elections where the districts have potentially been gerrymandered, we lack a non-gerrymandered counterfactual that would allow us to isolate its true effect. To overcome this challenge, we conduct computer simulations of the districting process to redraw the boundaries of Congressional districts without partisan intent. By estimating the outcomes of these non-gerrymandered districts, we are able to establish the non-gerrymandered counterfactual against which the actual outcomes can be compared. The analysis reveals that while gerrymandering affects the partisan outcomes of Congressional elections in some states, the net effect across the states is modest, creating no more than one new Republican seat in Congress. Therefore, the partisan composition of Congress can mostly be explained by non-partisan districting, suggesting that much of the electoral bias in Congressional elections is caused by factors other than partisan intent in the districting process.
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Political Attention and Corporate Influence: Evidence from Deepwater Horizon
Nimesh Patel
University of California Working Paper, August 2016
Abstract:
Using the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster as an exogenous shock to political attention, I find that publicly-traded oil companies with offshore operations increase their lobbying activity relative to non-oil companies. In contrast, oil companies operating primarily onshore slightly decrease their lobbying activity, consistent with a shift in political focus. Following the oil spill, the regulatory environment intensified in the offshore industry leading to a decrease in drilling permit supply. I find that post-spill lobbying is strongly predictive of successful drilling permit applications which in-turn are associated with a positive and significant 5-day 4-factor cumulative abnormal return and 4-factor alpha of around 0.85%. Overall, the results suggest that corporations actively adjust their level of political influence according to political attention and that this influence may be effective at mitigating regulatory concerns.
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The political economy of tax enforcement: A look at the Internal Revenue Service from 1978 to 2010
Sutirtha Bagchi
Journal of Public Policy, September 2016, Pages 335-380
Abstract:
This article looks at whether political ideology matters for enforcement of the nation's tax laws. An analysis of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) budget and personnel suggests that the party affiliation of the President makes no difference to the overall level of IRS resources. However, there are significant increases in the number of IRS employees devoted to criminal investigation and revenue collection under Democratic administrations. Audits of tax returns filed by corporations, individuals and estates are also significantly more likely under Democratic administrations. The body of evidence points in the direction that while Congress has a greater influence in determining the overall level of resources available to the IRS, the President has a more pronounced influence on the allocation of those resources.
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Divided we reform? Evidence from US welfare policies
Andreas Bernecker
Journal of Public Economics, October 2016, Pages 24-38
Abstract:
Divided government is often thought of as causing legislative deadlock. I investigate the link between divided government and economic reforms using a novel data set on welfare reforms in US states between 1978 and 2010. Panel data regressions show that, under divided government, a US state is around 25% more likely to adopt a welfare reform than under unified government. Several robustness checks confirm this counter-intuitive finding. Case study evidence suggests an explanation based on policy competition between governor, senate, and house.
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Policy risk, corporate political strategies, and the cost of debt
Daniel Bradley, Christos Pantzalis & Xiaojing Yuan
Journal of Corporate Finance, October 2016, Pages 254-275
Abstract:
We examine how political geography affects firms' cost of debt. Local policy risk, measured by proximity to political power reflected in firms' position in the country's political map, is positively related to firms' cost of debt. Employing a difference-in-difference-in-differences (DDD) estimation around presidential elections, we find that firms headquartered in states that become more aligned with the president after elections are exposed to more policy risk and thus incur higher yield spreads. Firms can manage policy risk by engaging in corporate political strategies. Consistent with the view that such political strategies protect firms against uncertainty about future policies, we find policy risk has less of an impact on a firm's cost of debt when the firm makes more PAC contributions or spends more money on lobbying.
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How Do Voters Matter? Evidence from US Congressional Redistricting
Daniel Jones & Randall Walsh
NBER Working Paper, August 2016
Abstract:
How does the partisan composition of an electorate impact the policies adopted by an elected representative? We take advantage of variation in the partisan composition of Congressional districts stemming from Census-initiated redistricting in the 1990's, 2000's, and 2010's. Using this variation, we examine how an increase in Democrat share within a district impacts the district representative's roll call voting. We find that an increase in Democrat share within a district causes more leftist roll call voting. This occurs because a Democrat is more likely to hold the seat, but also because - in contrast to existing empirical work - partisan composition has a direct effect on the roll call voting of individual representatives. This is true of both Democrats and Republicans. It is also true regardless of the nature of the redistricting (e.g., whether the redistricting was generated by a partisan or non-partisan process).
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Women's Issues and Their Fates in the US Congress
Craig Volden, Alan Wiseman & Dana Wittmer
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
Significant scholarship indicates that female legislators focus their attention on "women's issues" to a greater extent than do male lawmakers. Drawing on over 40 years of bill sponsorship data from the US House of Representatives, we define women's issues in terms of those sponsored at a greater rate by women in Congress. Our analysis reveals that most (but not all) of the classically considered women's issues are indeed raised at an enhanced rate by congresswomen. We then track the fate of those issues. While 4 percent of all bills become law, that rate drops to 2 percent for women's issues and to only 1 percent for women's issue bills sponsored by women themselves. This pattern persists over time - from the early 1970s through today - and upon controlling for other factors that influence bills success rates. We link the bias against women's issues to the committee process, and suggest several avenues for further research.
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Mitchell Hoffman & Elizabeth Lyons
NBER Working Paper, August 2016
Abstract:
Paying higher salaries is often believed to enhance worker effort, leading workers to work harder to avoid getting fired. However, workers may also respond to higher salaries by focusing on tasks that most directly affect getting fired (as opposed to those that contribute most to productivity). We explore these issues by analyzing the relationship between the level of compensation and time use for US state legislators. Using data on time use and legislator salaries, we show that higher salary is associated with legislators spending more time on fundraising. In contrast, higher salary is also associated with less time spent on legislative activities and has no clear relation to time spent on constituent services. Subgroup analysis broadly supports our interpretation of the data.
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Delivering the Vote: The Political Effect of Free Mail Delivery in Early Twentieth Century America
Elisabeth Ruth Perlman & Steven Sprick Schuster
Journal of Economic History, September 2016, Pages 769-802
Abstract:
The rollout of Rural Free Delivery (RFD) in the early twentieth century dramatically increased the frequency with which rural voters received information. This article examines the effect of RFD on voters' and Representatives' behavior using a panel dataset and instrumental variables. Communities receiving more routes spread their votes to more parties; there is no evidence it changed turnout. RFD shifted positions taken by Representatives in line with rural constituents, including increased support for pro-temperance and anti-immigration policies. These results appear only in counties with newspapers, supporting the hypothesis that information flows play a crucial role in the political process.
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Who is Punished? Conditions Affecting Voter Evaluations of Legislators Who Do Not Compromise
Nichole Bauer, Laurel Harbridge Yong & Yanna Krupnikov
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
In American politics, legislative compromise is often seen as a necessary and desirable aspect of policymaking, yet people also value politicians who stick to their positions. In this article, we consider these conflicting expectations of legislators and ask two intertwined questions: what conditions lead people to punish legislators for not compromising (when legislative action is at stake) and, conversely, what conditions leave people more willing to overlook a legislator's unwillingness to engage in compromise? Relying on previous research, we suggest that legislator gender, legislator partisanship, and issue area may all affect which legislators are punished for not compromising. Relying on two national experiments, we demonstrate that the extent to which lawmakers are punished for not compromising is conditional on the intersection of the three factors in this study. In general, our results suggest that people may be most willing to overlook unwillingness to engage in compromise when party, gender and issue ownership align than when party, gender, and issue ownership are at odds.
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Congress as manager: Oversight hearings and agency morale
John Marvel & Robert McGrath
Journal of Public Policy, September 2016, Pages 489-520
Abstract:
Federal agencies perform many important tasks, from guarding against terrorist plots to mailing social security checks. A key question is whether Congress can effectively manage such a large and influential bureaucracy. We argue that Congress, in using oversight to ensure agency responsiveness to legislative preferences, risks harming agency morale, which could have negative long-run effects on performance and the implementation of public policy. More specifically, we argue that oversight's effects on agency morale are conditional on whether oversight is adversarial or friendly. We assess our claims using a novel data set of the frequency and tone of hearings in which federal agencies are called to testify before Congress from 1999 to 2011 and merge it with data on agency autonomy and job satisfaction. Our findings suggest that agency morale is sensitive to congressional oversight attention, and thus speak to questions regarding democratic accountability, congressional policymaking and the implementation of public policy.
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Term limits, time horizons and electoral accountability
Sebastian Leguizamon & George Crowley
Public Choice, July 2016, Pages 23-42
Abstract:
Term limits have been known to reduce electoral accountability by removing the possibility of reelection, thus affecting economic policy choices (i.e., the 'lame duck' effect). We show that the magnitude and statistical significance of this effect is influenced by the expected length of a future career. By using incumbent age as a proxy for expected career length, we find that the lame-duck effect is statistically observable only among those politicians with long careers ahead. Using data on US governors from 1950 to 2005, we find evidence that the influence of term limits is heterogeneous, primarily influencing young incumbents who hope to have long careers and thus have stronger incentives to remain accountable to voters. Indeed, we find little evidence of a lame-duck effect among older incumbents, suggesting that their already-shortened time horizons may offset the term limit effect.
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Presidential Appointments and Public Trust
Gary Hollibaugh
Presidential Studies Quarterly, September 2016, Pages 618-639
Abstract:
Despite their responsibility for federal policy implementation in the United States, little research has focused on how presidential nominees and appointees affect public opinion. This study offers the first systematic examination of this overlooked phenomenon. Using a survey with an embedded experimental manipulation, we find that perceived nominee competence is associated with increased trust in government in general, whereas perceptions of favoritism or patronage - characterized here as the nomination of campaign fundraisers - are associated with decreased levels of trust in the same. Notably, perceived nominee ideology has no perceptible effect on trust in government.
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What I Like About You: Legislator Personality and Legislator Approval
Jonathan Klingler, Gary Hollibaugh & Adam Ramey
University of Notre Dame Working Paper, July 2016
Abstract:
Recent work in the study of legislative politics has applied the Five Factor Model of personality traits to investigate a wide variety of phenomena in the United States Congress. Findings from this literature raise questions about the Big Five personality traits and political representation, specifically, whether voters are more likely to support legislators with similar personality traits to their own, or legislators with valence personality traits, regardless of congruence. Using data from the 2014 CCES, we predict voters' job approval of federal legislators using measures of personality congruence and personality valence. We find strong and consistent support in favor of personality valence over personality congruence as a determinant of job approval.