Leadership Survival, Regime Type, Policy Uncertainty and PTA Accession

49 Pages Posted: 19 Jul 2010 Last revised: 27 Feb 2011

See all articles by B. Peter Rosendorff

B. Peter Rosendorff

New York University (NYU) - Wilf Family Department of Politics

James R. Hollyer

Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota

Date Written: February 23, 2011

Abstract

Preferential trade agreements (PTAs) limit member-states' trade policy discretion; consequently policy uncertainty is mitigated. Reductions in policy uncertainty stemming from accession to a PTA improve the resource allocation decisions of the voters and reduce deadweight losses from the need to self-insure against policy uncertainty. The resultant increase in efficiency improves an incumbent government's -- particularly a democratic government's -- chance of surviving in office. We test this prediction using survival analysis, adjusting for potential selection biases using propensity score matching. We find robust support for the proposition that governments that sign PTAs survive longer in office than observationally similar governments that do not sign. And we find that this effect is stronger in democracies than in autocracies.

Keywords: Trade Agreements, Leader Survival, International Political Economy

Suggested Citation

Rosendorff, Bryan Peter and Hollyer, James R., Leadership Survival, Regime Type, Policy Uncertainty and PTA Accession (February 23, 2011). APSA 2010 Annual Meeting Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1642415

Bryan Peter Rosendorff (Contact Author)

New York University (NYU) - Wilf Family Department of Politics ( email )

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2nd Floor
New York, NY 10012
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James R. Hollyer

Department of Political Science, University of Minnesota ( email )

1414 Social Sciences
267 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455
United States

HOME PAGE: http://jameshollyer.com

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