Long Term Consequences of Election Results
British Journal of Political Science, 2015
22 Pages Posted: 1 Aug 2012 Last revised: 19 Feb 2016
Date Written: 2015
Abstract
Voters in U.S. elections receive markedly different representation depending on which candidate they elect, and because of incumbent advantages, the effects of this choice persist for many years. What are the long-term consequences of these two phenomena? Combining electoral and legislative roll-call data in a dynamic regression-discontinuity design, we assess the long-term consequences of election results for representation. Across the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate, and state legislatures, the effects of “coin-flip” elections persist for at least a decade in all settings and as much as three decades in some settings. Further results suggest that elected officials do not adapt their roll-call voting to their districts’ preferences over time, and voters do not systematically respond by replacing incumbents.
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice
By Guido W. Imbens and Thomas Lemieux
-
Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice
By Guido W. Imbens and Thomas Lemieux
-
Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation
-
Recent Developments in the Econometrics of Program Evaluation
-
Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics
By David Lee and Thomas Lemieux
-
Does Head Start Improve Children's Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design
By Jens Ludwig and Douglas L. Miller
-
Does Head Start Improve Children's Life Chances? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design
By Jens Ludwig and Douglas L. Miller
-
Manipulation of the Running Variable in the Regression Discontinuity Design: A Density Test
-
Remedial Education and Student Achievement: A Regression-Discontinuity Analysis
By Brian Jacob and Lars John Lefgren
-
Regression Discontinuity Inference with Specification Error
By David Lee and David Card