IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v45y1985i1p3-17.html

Congressional rationality and spatial voting

Author

Listed:
  • Gregory Brunk

Abstract

It is very difficult to demonstrate that representatives employ sophisticated cost-benefit calculations in evaluating constituent benefits when making many legislative decisions. This is because most modern American legislation is ambiguous about which constituencies will receive particularized benefits. This paper examines a series of locational rollcall votes in which the benefits going to constituents were obvious. In such cases representatives balance increases in voter support within their congressional districts and potential increases in their political power within Congress to be gained by vote trading. If constituency benefits are great, representatives overwhelmingly support legislation to provide such benefits. As the benefits decline, vote trading increases. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers 1985

Suggested Citation

  • Gregory Brunk, 1985. "Congressional rationality and spatial voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 3-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:45:y:1985:i:1:p:3-17
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00163584
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00163584
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00163584?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. J C Archer, 1980. "Congressional-Incumbent Reelection Success and Federal-Outlays Distribution: A Test of the Electoral-Connection Hypothesis," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 12(3), pages 263-277, March.
    2. J. Archer & David Reynolds, 1976. "Locational logrolling and citizen support of municipal bond proposals," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 21-39, September.
    3. Deacon, Robert T & Shapiro, Perry, 1975. "Private Preference for Collective Goods Revealed Through Voting on Referenda," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 65(5), pages 943-955, December.
    4. R J Johnston, 1978. "Political Spending in the United States: Analyses of Political Influences on the Allocation of Federal Money to Local Environments," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 10(6), pages 691-704, June.
    5. repec:cup:apsrev:v:62:y:1968:i:01:p:25-42_11 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. repec:cup:apsrev:v:62:y:1968:i:1:p:25-42_1 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Susan Cowart, 1981. "Representation of high demand constituencies on review committees: A research note," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 337-342, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. repec:ags:aesdoc:207750 is not listed 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. 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".
    2. Matthew J. Holian & Matthew E. Kahn, 2014. "Household Demand for Low Carbon Public Policies: Evidence from California," NBER Working Papers 19965, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Irene Mussio & Angela C. M. Oliveira, 2022. "An (un)healthy social dilemma: a normative messaging field experiment with flu vaccinations," Health Economics Review, Springer, vol. 12(1), pages 1-16, December.
    4. Mwangi S. Kimenyi, 2006. "The Demand for Power Diffusion: A Case Study of the 2005 Constitutional Referendum Voting in Kenya," Working papers 2006-11, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    5. Stefano Carattini & Andrea Baranzini & Philippe Thalmann & Frédéric Varone & Frank Vöhringer, 2017. "Green Taxes in a Post-Paris World: Are Millions of Nays Inevitable?," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 68(1), pages 97-128, September.
    6. Adanu, Kwami & Hoehn, John P. & Norris, Patricia & Iglesias, Emma, 2012. "Voter decisions on eminent domain and police power reforms," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 187-194.
    7. Comin, Diego & Rode, Johannes, 2013. "From Green Users to Green Voters," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 63678, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    8. Schläpfer, Felix & Baur, Ivo, "undated". "Does CAP spending reflect taxpayer preferences? An analysis of expenditures for public goods and income redistribution in relation to preference indicators," 2017 International Congress, August 28-September 1, 2017, Parma, Italy 261105, European Association of Agricultural Economists.
    9. Hamilton, Stephen F. & Sunding, David L. & Zilberman, David, 2003. "Public goods and the value of product quality regulations: the case of food safety," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 799-817, March.
    10. Holmes, Thomas P., "undated". "The Demand for Groundwater Quality Legislation - An Economic Analysis of Voting Behavior," 1988 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Knoxville, Tennessee 270394, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    11. Mwangi Kimenyi & William Shughart, 2010. "The political economy of constitutional choice: a study of the 2005 Kenyan constitutional referendum," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 1-27, March.
    12. Gabriel Ahlfeldt & Wolfgang Maennig & Michaela Ölschläger, 2009. "Lifestyles and Preferences for (Public) Goods: Professional Football in Munich," Working Papers 030, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    13. Messer, Kent D. & Poe, Gregory L. & Rondeau, Daniel & Schulze, William D. & Vossler, Christian A., 2010. "Social preferences and voting: An exploration using a novel preference revealing mechanism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(3-4), pages 308-317, April.
    14. Miles Finney, 1999. "Constituency Preference And Police Consolidation: The Case Of West Hollywood," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 17(2), pages 235-242, April.
    15. Cropper, Maureen L & Oates, Wallace E, 1992. "Environmental Economics: A Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 675-740, June.
    16. Richard Carson & Nicholas Flores & Norman Meade, 2001. "Contingent Valuation: Controversies and Evidence," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 19(2), pages 173-210, June.
    17. Schady, Norbert R., 1999. "Seeking votes - the political economy of expenditures by the Peruvian Social Fund (FONCODES), 1991-95," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2166, The World Bank.
    18. Jordan, Jeffrey L. & Elnagheeb, Abdelmoneim H., 1992. "The Structure Of Citizen Preferences For Government Soil Erosion Control Programs," Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics, Southern Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 24(2), pages 1-10, December.
    19. Susan Feigenbaum & Lynn Karoly & David Levy, 1988. "When votes are words not deeds: Some evidence from the Nuclear Freeze Referendum," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 58(3), pages 201-216, September.
    20. Schadner, Wolfgang, 2022. "U.S. Politics from a multifractal perspective," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:kap:pubcho:v:45:y:1985:i:1:p:3-17. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.