Working Paper: NBER ID: w29966
Authors: Matias Iaryczower; Adam Meirowitz; Gabriel Lopez-Moctezuma
Abstract: Quantifying the value that legislators give to reelection relative to policy is crucial to understanding electoral accountability. We estimate the preferences for office and policy of members of the US Senate, using a structural approach that exploits variation in polls, position-taking and advertising throughout the electoral cycle. We then combine these preference estimates with estimates of the electoral effectiveness of policy moderation and political advertising to quantify electoral accountability in competitive and uncompetitive elections. We find that senators differ markedly in the value they give to securing office relative to policy gains: while over a fourth of senators are highly ideological, a sizable number of senators are willing to make relatively large policy concessions to attain electoral gains. Nevertheless, electoral accountability is only moderate on average, due to the relatively low impact of changes in senators’ policy stance on voter support.
Keywords: electoral accountability; legislators; preferences for office; policy concessions; position-taking; advertising
JEL Codes: C51; C57; D72
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| ideological stance of a senator (D72) | willingness to compromise on policy for electoral success (D72) |
| level of electoral competitiveness (K16) | senators' responsiveness to voter preferences (D72) |
| increasing a senator's TV ads (D72) | polling advantage (D72) |
| reducing a challenger's advertising (D72) | polling advantage (D72) |
| changes in senators' policy stances (D72) | voter support (K16) |
| effectiveness of position-taking (D79) | electoral accountability (D72) |
| bans on political advertising (D72) | electoral accountability (D72) |
| female senators (J16) | responsiveness to voters (D72) |
| Democrats (D72) | responsiveness to voters (D72) |