Political Actors
The Micro-Geography of Persuasion: Randomized Peer Exposure and Legislative Outcomes
Lauren Cohen & Bo Li
NBER Working Paper, March 2026
Abstract:
We find that randomly assigned peers play a sizable and unique role in shaping political economy. Closely seated, and exogenously assigned, US Senate peers have a significant impact on Congressional voting, shifting votes by 11.9 percentage points (t=7.34). Physical distance is the largest and most consistent of any characteristic outside of party or state in impacting voting behavior. The distance effect is concentrated in the closest peers, existing for up to 19.6 feet on the Senate floor, then dissipating. Close peers additionally increase the probability of aisle-crossing (voting with the opposite party), with the aisle-crossing impact being roughly eight times larger on the final votes on bills. We then utilize a state-of-the-art AI-enhanced computer vision model based on real-time interactions using CSPAN video data at every 10-second interval amongst Congressional members. Using these observed interactions, we find that face-to-face interactions are associated with significant impacts on immediately pending votes. The interactions are largely driven by distance, with aisle-seated Senators from both parties being amongst the most likely to engage in face-to-face interactions across party lines. By conducting counterfactuals through randomized Senate seating, 59 consequential bills would have switched outcomes over our 30-year sample period.
Political Realignment and Congressional Deference to Donald Trump
Jeffrey Stonecash
PS: Political Science & Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Congress is portrayed as compliant with President Donald J. Trump’s agenda because he is intimidating its members. This neglects an alternative explanation that focuses on the increased congruence of presidential and congressional electoral bases. Trump is the beneficiary of a geographical realignment that took decades and has created a high degree of overlap of the two bases. This analysis tracks that process from 1952 to 2024. It has produced a situation in which policy concerns overlap and encourage congressional compliance.
The overlooked threat of democratic neutrality in the USA
Matthew Hall, Tyler Leigh & Brittany Solomon
Nature Human Behaviour, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite increasing concerns about American democracy, recent studies find little public support for undemocratic practices. However, these studies ignore democratic neutrality -- that is, expressing neither agreement nor disagreement with undemocratic practices. Here, integrating research on uncertainty, indifference, ambivalence, conditionality and socially desirable responding, we argue that democratic neutrality poses an overlooked threat to democracy. Reanalysing prominent survey data (N = 45,095) and conducting two original surveys (N = 3,039; including a candidate-choice experiment), we document democratic neutrality as (a) prevalent (half of Americans express neutrality towards one or more undemocratic practices), (b) reflecting substantively meaningful attitudes (versus inattention), (c) correlated with theoretically related constructs, (d) distinct from opposition to undemocratic practices, and (e) as consequential as outright support for undemocratic practices in shaping preferences for anti-democratic candidates. Our findings challenge optimistic empirical accounts of Americans’ attitudes towards democracy. Democratic neutrality may help explain, and be targeted to ameliorate, democratic backsliding.
Mitigating policy uncertainty: What financial markets reveal about firm-level lobbying
Kristy Buzard, Nathan Canen & Sebastian Saiegh
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Elections can lead to substantial policy changes and, thus, are a significant source of risk. Firms can respond to such policy uncertainty by lobbying, but it is hard to quantify whether they do so and, if so, how much lobbying benefits them. We construct a new dataset and leverage investors’ expectations of variability in stock returns in the aftermath of the 2020 US presidential election to generate a new firm-level measure of exposure to policy uncertainty. We show that lobbying reduces policy uncertainty, and that this result holds even after controlling for selection into lobbying and sectoral heterogeneity. We then develop and quantify a model of heterogeneous firms with endogenous lobbying. We find that affecting policy through lobbying is costly and the returns from it are highly skewed and rapidly diminishing. Thus, while lobbying expenditures reduce the impact of policy risk, few firms anticipate sufficient gains to invest in it.
Working-Class Legislators, Bill Writing, and Introduction: Limited Evidence of Substantive Representation in Congress
Erinn Lauterbach et al.
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Few groups are as poorly represented in Congress relative to their prevalence in the population as are members of the working-class. While working-class members of Congress vote more economically liberally than do other members, the extent to which they are more likely to introduce or write legislation to benefit the working-class is unknown. We test whether legislators from a working-class background provide better substantive representation of the working-class by introducing and writing legislation that advances working-class interests compared to non-working-class legislators. Examining Policy Content Scores and sponsorship measures across four congresses covering 3,491 social welfare bills, we find that working-class members are no more likely to write bills that include more policy tools to ensure their preferences are reflected or introduce bills addressing working-class issues.
Capital in the Capitol: Congressional Trades Resemble Uninformed Retail Trading
Haotian Chen & Bruce Sacerdote
NBER Working Paper, April 2026
Abstract:
Do elected officials exploit informational advantages for personal financial gain? This question has attracted heightened attention amid
increased scrutiny of congressional stock trading, particularly following the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior research finds little evidence that legislators outperform the market, but existing studies rely on limited time periods and offer limited insight into the mechanisms underlying trade timing. We revisit this question by constructing a novel dataset covering the stock trading activity of all U.S. members of Congress and their immediate families from 2012 to 2023. We find that, on average, legislators’ portfolios underperform or, at best, match market benchmarks after the STOCK Act. What explains this mediocre performance? We show that legislators’ positions track financial professionals’ recommendations, and that their timing largely reflects prevailing market sentiment, estimated from retail investors’ social media posts, rather than anticipating future price changes. Together, these results suggest that legislators’ observable trading behavior is more consistent with public-signal-following than with systematically profitable use of private information.
Demobilization Without Backlash: Campaign Donations and the DOGE Workforce Reduction
Muzhi Liu
Columbia University Working Paper, March 2026
Abstract:
Does economic harm to government workers translate into political backlash through campaign donations? I study the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which separated approximately 317,000 federal employees in 2025. Comparing the first post-inauguration years of Trump's two terms -- 2017 (no comparable workforce shock) and 2025 (DOGE) -- I find that federal workers' Democratic donations were sharply lower in early 2025, with a 0.46 log-point decline in January before any realized cuts. This early suppression is consistent with anticipatory demobilization under threat and uncertainty rather than grievance-driven backlash. The result is robust to a frozen-identity classification that retains donors linked to pre-2025 federal employment regardless of post-separation employer reporting. Within the federal workforce, DOGE-targeted agencies underperformed other agencies, while the U.S. Postal Service initially appeared to resist this pattern. Excluding union PAC contributions shows that the USPS exception reflects routinized union-PAC collection rather than broader independently initiated giving. The findings suggest that threatened economic shocks can suppress costly political participation before harm is realized, and that organizational contribution channels can mask this demobilization in campaign finance data.
Does Public Financing of Campaigns Increase Legislative Effectiveness Among State Legislators?
Bruce Larson & Eric Heberlig
Election Law Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Scholars have analyzed the effect of public funding of campaigns on many aspects of U.S. politics, particularly in the context of U.S. state legislatures. One important yet unanswered question is whether public financing, in freeing state lawmakers from the time demands of fundraising, enhances their effectiveness as legislators. Using Bucchianeri, Volden, and Wiseman’s recently introduced measure of legislative effectiveness for state lawmakers (State Legislative Effectiveness Score), we investigate the impact of public funding on state lawmaker legislative effectiveness in the three states that offer full public funding to state legislative candidates: Arizona, Connecticut, and Maine. Accounting for the fact that legislators’ decision to take public financing is not random, we find some evidence that state legislators who rely on public funding to finance their campaigns are more effective lawmakers than those who rely on private funding. Notably, however, the effect of public funding on legislative effectiveness is relatively modest compared with other factors that typically influence legislative effectiveness -- for example, serving as a committee chair. Although we cannot conclude with confidence that the influence of public funding on legislative effectiveness differs between the two parties, we do find that public funding appears to influence legislative effectiveness differently within each party. Our findings should be of interest not only to scholars but also to policy makers aiming to enhance the legislative effectiveness of state lawmakers by reducing the time they spend fundraising.
The Evolution of Firm Lobbying in American Politics: Testing Theories of Lobby Activity and Centrality (1999–2018)
Marcel Hanegraaff, Ellis Aizenberg & Diliara Valeeva
British Journal of Political Science, April 2026
Abstract:
This research note investigates how the involvement of firms in American politics has developed over the past two decades. The central question is whether individual firms have become more active lobbyists compared to business associations in the US Congress over this period. Different subdisciplines in political science have various expectations regarding the evolution of firm lobbying. We test which perspective is most accurate. To evaluate the hypotheses, we use a novel dataset comprising approximately 180,000 instances of lobbying activity by different types of interest organizations across a wide range of sectors and issues. In our analyses, we trace both the relative activity of firms versus business associations and their centrality in lobbying networks. While most theoretical models in the literature suggest a rise of firm lobbying activity, our results highlight a strikingly stable pattern of firm lobbying activity and centrality within the US political system over the past two decades.
Returns to Political Contributions in Local Housing Markets
Rui Yu
Review of Economics and Statistics, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines how politically connected firms shape housing supply in U.S. cities. Using new data on campaign donations to U.S. mayors and a regression discontinuity design, I present three findings. First, developers connected to the mayor sell more new housing units. Second, more sales of new housing by connected developers coincide with higher local housing supply: cities where mayors received more developer donations issue nearly 70 percent more permits for new housing units. Third, differences in mayors’ pre-existing policy stances -- rather than connections to developers -- is a quantitatively larger determinant of local housing supply.