IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v61y2016i2p245-262.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Do Government Employees Influence Election Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Dwight Baugus
  • George Diemer

Abstract

The number of Americans employed by the government has grown over the years both in absolute numbers and as a proportion of the population. Assuming that these people are rational voters, they have a strong incentive to vote for candidates who seem most committed to maintaining the status quo or increasing the size and scope of government. However, this may not be the preference of the electorate as a whole, at least in some elections. This reality sets up a situation where bureaucrats could vote in significantly different patterns than the nonbureaucrat population. Under some conditions, it is possible that government employees are the marginal difference in an election outcome. This article explores how much influence government employees exert on election outcomes. In short, we seek to demonstrate how jurisdictions with a disproportionate share of government employees vote differently than other jurisdictions. We also explore what implications that may have on campaign resource allocation.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Dwight Baugus & George Diemer, 2016. "How Do Government Employees Influence Election Outcomes," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 61(2), pages 245-262, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:61:y:2016:i:2:p:245-262
    DOI: 10.1177/0569434516653750
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0569434516653750
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0569434516653750?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jørn Rattsø & Rune J. Sørensen, 2004. "Public Employees as Swing Voters: Empirical Evidence on Opposition to Public Reform," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 119(3_4), pages 281-310, June.
    2. Bruno Frey & Werner Pommerehne, 1982. "How powerful are public bureaucrats as voters?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 253-262, January.
    3. James Bennett & William Orzechowski, 1983. "The voting behavior of bureaucrats: Some empirical evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 271-283, January.
    4. Corey, Elizabeth C & Garand, James C, 2002. "Are Government Employees More Likely to Vote?: An Analysis of Turnout in the 1996 U.S. National Election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 111(3-4), pages 259-283, June.
    5. George Diemer, 2009. "Point Shaving in the NFL Gambling Market: A Bootstrap Investigation," Journal of Prediction Markets, University of Buckingham Press, vol. 3(3), pages 13-31, December.
    6. Rubinfeld, Daniel L, 1977. "Voting in a Local School Election: A Micro Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 59(1), pages 30-42, February.
    7. Edward M. Gramlich & Daniel L. Rubinfeld, 1982. "Voting on public spending: Differences between public employees, transfer recipients, and private workers," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(4), pages 516-533.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. François Facchini & Abel François, 2005. "Territorial captivity and voter participation in national election: a theoretical and empirical analysis," Post-Print hal-00270739, HAL.
    2. Mirco Tonin & Michael Vlassopoulos, 2015. "Are public sector workers different? Cross-European evidence from elderly workers and retirees," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Stephen Mehay & Kenneth Seiden, 1986. "Municipal residency laws and local public budgets," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(1), pages 27-35, January.
    4. Yosef Bhatti & Kasper Hansen, 2013. "Public employees lining up at the polls—the conditional effect of living and working in the same municipality," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(3), pages 611-629, September.
    5. Eugenia Toma & James Long, 1987. "Public employees' consumption of government goods: The case of education," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 53(3), pages 289-296, January.
    6. Kenneth Mackenzie, 1999. "Diseño institucional y política pública: una perspectiva microeconómica," Revista de Economía Institucional, Universidad Externado de Colombia - Facultad de Economía, vol. 1(1), pages 17-58, July-dece.
    7. Weck-Hannemann, Hannelore, 1989. "Protectionism in direct democracy," Discussion Papers, Series II 79, University of Konstanz, Collaborative Research Centre (SFB) 178 "Internationalization of the Economy".
    8. Michael L. Marlow, 2013. "Public sector unions and government size," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(5), pages 466-470, March.
    9. Brändle, Thomas & Stutzer, Alois, 2008. "Bureaucrats in parliament: theory and evidence on its determinants in Germany," Working papers 2008/07, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    10. Bert Jaarsma & Arthur Schram & Frans Winden, 1986. "On the voting participation of public bureaucrats," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 48(2), pages 183-187, January.
    11. Magnus Henrekson & Johan Lybeck, 1988. "Explaining the growth of government in Sweden: A disequilibrium approach," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 213-232, June.
    12. Wyss, Simone, 2008. "Ist die relative Schlechterstellung niedrigqualifizierter Arbeitskräfte Mythos oder Realität? - Eine Analyse der Schweizer Disparität von Lohn- und Arbeitslosenquote nach Qualifikation," Working papers 2008/06, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    13. Facchini, Francois, 2014. "The determinants of public spending: a survey in a methodological perspective," MPRA Paper 53006, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Kevin M. O'Brien, 1997. "Do Municipal Residency Laws Affect Labour Market Outcomes?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 34(11), pages 1759-1769, November.
    15. Bagi, Faqir Singh, 1983. "A Logit Model Of Farmers' Decisions About Credit," Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 15(2), pages 1-7, December.
    16. Rosenthal, Howard & Zame, William R., 2022. "Sequential referenda with sophisticated voters," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 212(C).
    17. Blomquist, Glenn C. & Coomes, Paul A. & Jepsen, Christopher & Koford, Brandon C. & Troske, Kenneth R., 2014. "Estimating the social value of higher education: willingness to pay for community and technical colleges," Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 5(1), pages 3-41, January.
    18. Jeffrey S. Zax, 1985. "Municipal Employment, Municipal Unions, and Demand for Municipal Services," NBER Working Papers 1728, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Brunner, Eric & Balsdon, Ed, 2004. "Intergenerational conflict and the political economy of school spending," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 369-388, September.
    20. Rockoff, Jonah E., 2010. "Local response to fiscal incentives in heterogeneous communities," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 138-147, September.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:61:y:2016:i:2:p:245-262. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.