Working Paper: NBER ID: w16437
Authors: Lauren Cohen; Christopher Malloy
Abstract: We demonstrate that personal connections amongst politicians have a significant impact on the voting behavior of U.S. politicians. Networks based on alumni connections between politicians, as well as common seat locations on the chamber floor, are consistent predictors of voting behavior. For the former, we estimate sharp measures that control for common characteristics of the network, as well as heterogeneous impacts of a common network characteristic across votes. For common seat locations, we identify a set of plausibly exogenously assigned seats (Freshman Senators), and find a strong impact of seat location networks on voting. We find that the effect of alumni networks is close to 60% of the size of the effect of state-level considerations. The network effects we identify are stronger for more tightly linked networks, and at times when votes are most valuable.
Keywords: political connections; voting behavior; social networks; alumni networks
JEL Codes: D85; G18; G3; G38; P16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Alumni networks (D85) | Voting behavior (D72) |
| Percentage of senators in a senator's alumni network voting in favor of a bill (D72) | Likelihood that the senator will also vote in favor of the bill (K16) |
| Alumni networks (D85) | Voting behavior during close votes (D72) |
| Alumni networks (D85) | Voting behavior for votes irrelevant to constituents (D72) |
| Vested interests in a bill (D72) | Influence on peers (C92) |
| Seat location networks (D85) | Voting behavior (D72) |
| Proximity to other senators in the chamber (D72) | Voting behavior (D72) |
| Voting behavior (D72) | Influence of alumni networks (D85) |