Something is rotten
Something for Something: How and Why Direct Democracy Impacts Service Quality
Michael Sances
Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Spring 2018, Pages 29-57
Abstract:
Does direct democracy affect the quality of government services? Numerous studies find that direct democracy reduces government revenues, but whether this reflects lower quality services, or simply reduced waste, is unknown. I use a local government reform to estimate the effect of mandatory tax referendums on both revenues and service quality, here measured using fire department response times. The introduction of referendums reduces revenue growth by 1.8%, while also increasing response times by half a minute. An analysis of precinct-level service utilization and electoral behavior suggests that this effect is driven not by voter myopia, but by self-interest. Poor precincts, which are six times as likely to experience a structure fire, are also six times as likely to vote to increase taxes. Consistent with the precinct-level results, the effects of referendums are smallest in the poorest districts, and are largest in the wealthiest districts.
Fundraising for Favors? Linking Lobbyist-Hosted Fundraisers to Legislative Benefits
Amy Melissa McKay
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do legislators and lobbyists trade favors? This study uses uncommon data sources and plagiarism software to detect a rarely observed relationship between interest group lobbyists and sitting Members of Congress. Comparison of letters to a Senate committee written by lobby groups to legislative amendments introduced by committee members reveals similar and even identical language, providing compelling evidence that groups persuaded legislators to introduce amendments valued by the group. Moreover, the analysis suggests that these language matches are more likely when the requesting lobby group hosts a fundraising event for the senator. The results hold while controlling for ideological agreement between the senator and the group, the group’s campaign contributions to the senator, and the group’s lobbying expenditures, annual revenue, and home-state connections.
Negative Descriptive Social Norms and Political Action: People Aren’t Acting, So You Should
Hans Hassell & Emily Wyler
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Individuals learn about the actions or behaviors of other people through the use of descriptive social norms. Previous work has argued that the use of negative descriptive norms (or information indicating many people are not doing something) depresses participation relative to positive descriptive norms. We show that for political actions this is not always correct. Using two experiments, we examine the willingness of individuals to take public action when these requests include either a positive or a negative descriptive norm. In the first, we invite individuals to write a local city official about city policy and in the second, we ask individuals to sign a petition advocating a specific policy at a large public university. We find that individuals are more likely to act when presented with the negative descriptive norm and that this effect stems from the anger negative descriptive norms elicit.
The Personal Wealth Interests of Politicians and Government Intervention in the Economy
Ahmed Tahoun & Laurence van Lent
Review of Finance, forthcoming
Abstract:
We examine whether there is a correlation between personal wealth interests of politicians and their decisions to intervene in the economy. We use the setting of the government’s support of financial institutions under the 2008 Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. We find that the personal wealth interests of politicians are positively associated with voting in favor of the EESA.
Former members of the U.S. Congress and fraud enforcement: Does it help to have politically connected friends on the board?
Emre Kuvvet & Pankaj Kumar Maskara
Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate the relationship between the presence of former members of the U.S. Congress on corporate boards and fraud enforcement. We find that corporate fraud in companies with such members on the board stays undetected longer. When caught, such companies pay lower penalties. The appointment of former Congressional members to the board also lessens the probability of the company being subjected to Accounting and Auditing Enforcement Releases by the SEC after they face class-action lawsuits for fraudulent activities. Our results remain robust to the presence of other means of making political connections, such as lobbying, hiring revolving-door lobbyists, and contributing to political campaigns.
The Growth of Government, Trust in Government, and Evidence on Their Coevolution
Steven Gordon, John Garen & J.R. Clark
University of Kentucky Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
The coevolution of trust in government alongside the growth of government is an aspect of research on the latter topic that has not been explored. We consider this coevolution in the context of a political economy model and a public interest view of government growth and incorporate the role of trust in government. The negative association of the growth in government with trust in government is consistent with a political economy model of government growth, rent seeking/lobbying, trust, and productivity. Though such a model is broadly consistent with the historical data since the late 1950s, we present a more econometrically sophisticated examination of the data. In particular, we recognize the difficulties of statistical inference with non-stationary data and take the appropriate steps to deal with it. There is strong evidence that two aspects of government size – transfer payments and regulatory activity – align with the political economy model. Specifically, we find cointegration indicating the following: a negative association between trust and lobbying activity, a negative relationship between trust and each of these two measures of government, and a positive association of trust and productivity. Though other measures of government size do not produce as robust of findings, we do not find evidence of positive associations of trust and government size nor of trust and lobbying, as might be expected from a public interest view of government.
Quota Shocks: Electoral Gender Quotas and Government Spending Priorities Worldwide
Amanda Clayton & Pär Zetterberg
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The rapid expansion of electoral gender quotas in the past few decades has been met with considerable scholarly and public attention. Despite this, there has been little empirical work examining the global legislative consequences of gender quotas over time. Developing a unique time-series cross-sectional data set from 139 states during the peak period of quota adoption and implementation (1995–2012), we test whether and how quotas are associated with subsequent changes in government spending priorities. We find that substantial quota shocks — those associated with a large increase in women’s parliamentary representation — are followed by increased government expenditures toward public health. Further, we find that increases in health spending are offset by relative decreases in military spending and other spending categories. Our findings provide strong evidence that quota policies influence government priorities in historically feminized policy areas but principally when they are complied with and have substantial numerical consequences.
Corruption and destructive entrepreneurship
Christopher Boudreaux, Boris Nikolaev & Randall Holcombe
Small Business Economics, June 2018, Pages 181–202
Abstract:
The negative effects of corruption at the macro level are well-documented. Corruption reduces economic growth, lowers investment, and erodes trust in government officials, creating an institutional environment that pushes entrepreneurs from productive to destructive activities. Corruption also has effects at the micro level because some industries are better situated to profit from corruption than others. Corruption not only lowers economic output but also shifts resources toward some industries and away from others. Using federal convictions in the USA as a measure of corruption, regression results show that increased corruption shifts resources toward the construction industry and away from the education industry and professional, scientific, and technical service industry. The evidence also shows that the distance from state capitals and voter turnout moderate the relationship between corruption and firm concentrations.
The Long-lasting Effects of Newspaper Op-Eds on Public Opinion
Alexander Coppock, Emily Ekins & David Kirby
Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Spring 2018, Pages 59-87
Abstract:
Do newspaper opinion pieces change the minds of those who read them? We conduct two randomized panel survey experiments on elite and mass convenience samples to estimate the effects of five op-eds on policy attitudes. We find very large average treatment effects on target issues, equivalent to shifts of approximately 0.5 scale points on a 7-point scale, that persist for at least one month. We find very small and insignificant average treatment effects on non-target issues, suggesting that our subjects read, understood, and were persuaded by the arguments presented in these op-eds. We find limited evidence of treatment effect heterogeneity by party identification: Democrats, Republicans, and independents all appear to move in the predicted direction by similar magnitudes. We conduct this study on both a sample of Amazon Mechanical Turk workers and a sample of elites. Despite large differences in demographics and initial political beliefs, we find that op-eds were persuasive to both the mass public and elites, but marginally more persuasive among the mass public. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence of the everyday nature of persuasion.
Guns, Environment, and Abortion: How Single-Minded Voters Shape Politicians' Decisions
Laurent Bouton et al.
Georgetown University Working Paper, March 2018
Abstract:
We study how electoral incentives affect policy choices on secondary issues, which only minorities of voters care intensely about. We develop a model in which office and policy motivated politicians choose to support or oppose regulations on these issues. We derive conditions under which politicians flip-flop, voting according to their policy preferences at the beginning of their terms, but in line with the preferences of single-issue minorities as they approach re-election. To assess the evidence, we study U.S. senators' votes on gun control, environment, and reproductive rights. In line with our model's predictions, election proximity has a pro-gun effect on Democratic senators and a pro-environment effect on Republican senators. These effects only arise for non-retiring senators, who represent states where the single-issue minority is of intermediate size. Also in line with our theory, election proximity has no impact on senators' decisions on reproductive rights, because of the presence of single-issue minorities on both sides.
Persuasion and Transparency
Ronen Gradwohl & Timothy Feddersen
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
An advisory committee with common values and asymmetric information provides a recommendation to a decision maker facing a binary choice. We investigate the effect of a transparency requirement — requiring committee members’ actions to be observable — on the committee’s ability to influence the decision maker. We show that unless the preferences of the committee and decision maker are sufficiently close, requiring transparency eliminates the committee’s ability to provide any useful information. In contrast, if preferences are very close or if committee members are able to verifiably reveal their signals then transparency is beneficial.
Parties, Legislators, and the Origins of Proportional Representation
Gary Cox, Jon Fiva & Daniel Smith
Comparative Political Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
A prominent line of theories holds that proportional representation (PR) was introduced in many European democracies by a fragmented bloc of conservative parties seeking to preserve their legislative seat shares after franchise extension and industrialization increased the vote base of socialist parties. In contrast to this “seat-maximization” account, we focus on how PR affected party leaders’ control over nominations, thereby enabling them to discipline their followers and build more cohesive parties. We explore this “party-building” account in the case of Norway, using roll call data from six reform proposals in 1919. We show that leaders were more likely to vote in favor of PR than rank-and-file members, even controlling for the parties’ expected seat payoffs and the district-level socialist electoral threat facing individual legislators. Moreover, using within-legislator variation, we show that the internal cohesion of parties increased significantly after the introduction of PR.
Elites are people, too: The effects of threat sensitivity on policymakers’ spending priorities
Kevin Arceneaux, Johanna Dunaway & Stuart Soroka
PLoS ONE, April 2018
Abstract:
Recent research suggests that psychological needs can influence the political attitudes of ordinary citizens, often outside of their conscious awareness. In this paper, we investigate whether psychological needs also shape the spending priorities of political elites in the US. Most models of policymaking assume that political elites respond to information in relatively homogeneous ways. We suggest otherwise, and explore one source of difference in information processing, namely, threat sensitivity, which previous research links to increased support for conservative policy attitudes. Drawing on a sample of state-level policymakers, we measure their spending priorities using a survey and their level of threat sensitivity using a standard psychophysiological measure (skin conductance). We find that, like ordinary citizens, threat sensitivity leads even state-level policymakers to prioritize spending on government polices that are designed to minimize threats.