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Environmental Constituent Interest, Green Electricity Policies, and Legislative Voting

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  • Andrew Chupp, B.

Abstract

Research in political economy has traditionally sought to disentangle the effects of legislative ideology and constituent interest in explaining policy decisions. Frequently, proxy variables are used to measure constituent interest. However, these measures do not adequately reflect true constituent interest, which is based upon the costs and benefits of the policies under consideration, incorporating the scope of the policies. Using Haiku, a detailed model of the US electricity sector, and TAF, an integrated assessment model of pollution pathways and valuation, I construct economic measures of constituent interest at the state level as well as for federal policy. I then use these measures to analyze state adoption of more stringent green electricity policies and congressional roll-call voting on federal environmental policy. Previous studies that use proxy measures of constituent interest typically find that the legislator ideology matters more, while my study shows that both ideology and constituent interest are significant factors.

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  • Andrew Chupp, B., 2011. "Environmental Constituent Interest, Green Electricity Policies, and Legislative Voting," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 254-266, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jeeman:v:62:y:2011:i:2:p:254-266
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    Cited by:

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    2. Landry, Joel R., 2021. "The political allocation of green pork and its implications for federal climate policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    3. Millimet, Daniel L., 2013. "Environmental Federalism: A Survey of the Empirical Literature," IZA Discussion Papers 7831, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Schumacher, Ingmar, 2014. "An Empirical Study of the Determinants of Green Party Voting," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 306-318.
    5. Fredriksson, Per G. & Wollscheid, Jim R., 2014. "Environmental decentralization and political centralization," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 402-410.
    6. Coria, Jessica & Hennlock, Magnus & Sterner, Thomas, 2018. "Fiscal Federalism, Interjurisdictional Externalities, and Overlapping Policies," RFF Working Paper Series 18-23, Resources for the Future.
    7. Coria, Jessica & Hennlock, Magnus & Sterner, Thomas, 2018. "Fiscal Federalism, Interjurisdictional Externalities and Overlapping Policies," Working Papers in Economics 742, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    8. B. Chupp, 2014. "Political interaction in the senate: estimating a political “spatial” weights matrix and an application to lobbying behavior," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 521-538, September.
    9. Hitaj, Claudia, 2013. "Wind power development in the United States," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 394-410.
    10. Lee, Donghyun & Kim, Minki & Lee, Jungyoun, 2016. "Adoption of green electricity policies: Investigating the role of environmental attitudes via big data-driven search-queries," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 187-201.
    11. Banzhaf, H. Spencer & Chupp, B. Andrew, 2012. "Fiscal federalism and interjurisdictional externalities: New results and an application to US Air pollution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(5), pages 449-464.
    12. Xuebing Dong & Benbo Liang & Haichao Yu & Hui Zhu, 2023. "Market Segmentation and Green Development Performance: Evidence from Chinese Cities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-24, March.

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