Doctoral Dissertation Research in Economics: Voter Behavior And Seniority Advantage In Congress

经济学博士论文研究：国会选民行为与资历优势

• 批准号: 0962191
• 负责人: David Cooper
• 金额: $ 0.5万
• 依托单位: Florida State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2010
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2010-02-01 至 2011-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0962191&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Economics; Voter

This project investigates voter behavior due to seniority advantage in Congress. It is possible that voters compete for pork barrel funds by reelecting incumbents to maintain seniority. This leads to a transfer of tax dollars from districts or states with junior legislators to those with more senior ones. Primary interest lies in discovering whether voters respond more to monetary rewards or visceral stimulation caused by policy representation. Term limits are also considered as a mechanism to reduce the cost of electing a challenger as well as reducing the asymmetry in pork barrel distribution. Controlled laboratory experiments are utilized where subjects are divided into districts and act as legislators and voters. Intellectual Merit: There are no previous experimental studies that test subject reactions to monetary payoffs against reactions to visceral stimulation, let alone in a setting as relevant as voting. Much of the existing literature on seniority advantage proposes that voters prefermonetary benefits to policy representation, but this is the first attempt to test that belief. The experimental design is novel in its use of visceral stimulation via political issues as well as the method by which subjects express policy support through donations to foundations that support particular sides of the featured political issue. Finding that voters weigh monetary benefits less heavily in the voting decision than policy representation will impact the way economists and political scientists view vote choice. Such a finding would also lead naturally to investigating the evolution of voting behavior and whether this result is a natural response to incentives or whether voters have been conditioned by current institutions.Broader Impacts: If term limits are found to be effective at reducing disparity in tax benefits as well reducing the cost of searching for better policy representation, serious consideration should be given to changing the internal institutions of Congress.

由于国会的资历优势，该项目调查了选民行为。 选民可能会通过拒绝现任人来维持资历来争夺猪肉桶资金。 这导致从地区或有初级立法者的州或州的税收转移到具有更多高级人士的人。 主要兴趣在于发现选民是否对政策代表造成的货币奖励或内脏刺激的反应更多。 期限限制也被认为是降低选举挑战者成本以及减少猪肉桶分布中不对称性的一种机制。 在将受试者分为地区并充当立法者和选民的情况下，利用受控实验室实验。智力优点：以前没有实验研究能够测试对对内脏刺激反应的货币收益的反应，更不用说在像投票一样相关的环境中进行了反应。 关于资历优势的许多现有文献都表明，选民比政策代表更喜欢环境利益，但这是测试这种信念的首次尝试。 实验设计是通过政治问题使用内脏刺激以及受试者通过捐赠给支持特色政治问题特定方面的基础来表达政策支持的方法的新颖新颖的。 发现选民在投票决定中比政策代表制度的重大福利要少，而政策代表将影响经济学家和政治科学家认为投票选择的方式。 这样的发现也自然会导致调查投票行为的演变，以及该结果是否是对激励措施的自然反应，或者是否受到当前机构的限制。BROADER的影响：如果发现定期限制有效地降低了税收优惠的差异，还可以减少搜索更好的政策代表性的成本，以更改国内机构，以更改国内机构。