IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/blkpoe/v44y2017i3d10.1007_s12114-017-9250-4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Substantive Black Political Representation: Evidence from Matching Estimates in the United States House of Representatives

Author

Listed:
  • Nolan Kopkin

    (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee)

Abstract

I seek to determine whether race is a factor in how black representatives vote in the United States House of Representatives; if so, this suggests electing more black representatives may improve the economic and political position of blacks if policy positions taken by black representatives on bills that fail to pass would provide tangible positive impacts to members of the black community if passed. Confounding the impact of legislator race, districts represented by blacks on average are quite different than those represented by whites. While past research on this topic uses linear regression techniques with undesirable properties, I improve on past research using matching techniques with more desirable properties. Utilizing a combination of Mahalanobis and propensity score matching, within-caliper matching, and exact matching using data from the 100th–113th Congress, I show black representatives are more likely to vote in agreement with the majority of the Congressional Black Caucus on all votes and on Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Americans for Democratic Action, and Congressional Quarterly key votes, indicating a substantive racial impact on roll-call voting.

Suggested Citation

  • Nolan Kopkin, 2017. "Substantive Black Political Representation: Evidence from Matching Estimates in the United States House of Representatives," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 44(3), pages 203-232, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:blkpoe:v:44:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s12114-017-9250-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s12114-017-9250-4
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12114-017-9250-4
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s12114-017-9250-4?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 search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist's Companion," Economics Books, Princeton University Press, edition 1, number 8769.
    2. Christian R. Grose, 2005. "Disentangling Constituency and Legislator Effects in Legislative Representation: Black Legislators or Black Districts?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 86(2), pages 427-443, June.
    3. Ho, Daniel E. & Imai, Kosuke & King, Gary & Stuart, Elizabeth A., 2007. "Matching as Nonparametric Preprocessing for Reducing Model Dependence in Parametric Causal Inference," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 15(3), pages 199-236, July.
    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. Bono, Pierre-Henri & David, Quentin & Desbordes, Rodolphe & Py, Loriane, 2022. "Metro infrastructure and metropolitan attractiveness," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    2. Lei, Zhenhuan & Nugent, Jeffrey B., 2018. "Coordinating China's economic growth strategy via its government-controlled association for private firms," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(4), pages 1273-1293.
    3. Ubaldi, Michele & Picchio, Matteo, 2023. "Intergenerational scars: The impact of parental unemployment on individual health later in life," GLO Discussion Paper Series 1271, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    4. Jeffrey Smith & Arthur Sweetman, 2016. "Viewpoint: Estimating the causal effects of policies and programs," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 49(3), pages 871-905, August.
    5. Kathrine Graevenitz & Daniel Römer & Alexander Rohlf, 2018. "The Effect of Emission Information on Housing Prices: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the European Pollutant Release and Transfer Register," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 69(1), pages 23-74, January.
    6. El Ghoul, Sadok & Guedhami, Omrane & Pittman, Jeffrey, 2016. "Cross-country evidence on the importance of Big Four auditors to equity pricing: The mediating role of legal institutions," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 60-81.
    7. Maxir, Henrique dos Santos & Galvão, Maria Cristina & Costa, Rayssa Alexandre & Silveira, Iara Maria da & Almeida, Alexandre Nunes de, 2021. "Assessing the Effects of the Green-Blue Municipality Program on Human Health in the State of São Paulo, Brazil," Revista Brasileira de Estudos Regionais e Urbanos, Associação Brasileira de Estudos Regionais e Urbanos (ABER), vol. 15(1), pages 57-97.
    8. Canavire-Bacarreza, Gustavo & Hanauer, Merlin M., 2013. "Estimating the Impacts of Bolivia’s Protected Areas on Poverty," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 265-285.
    9. Dionne, Kim Yi & Horowitz, Jeremy, 2016. "The Political Effects of Agricultural Subsidies in Africa: Evidence from Malawi," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 215-226.
    10. Ellen Van de Poel & Gabriela Flores & Por Ir & Owen O'Donnell, 2016. "Impact of Performance‐Based Financing in a Low‐Resource Setting: A Decade of Experience in Cambodia," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(6), pages 688-705, June.
    11. Adam S. Chilton & Mila Versteeg, 2015. "The Failure of Constitutional Torture Prohibitions," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(2), pages 417-452.
    12. Jones, A.M.; & Pastore, C.; & Rice, N.;, 2018. "Tracking pupils into adulthood: selective schools and long-term well-being in the 1958 British cohort," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 18/32, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    13. Weihua An & Ying Ding, 2018. "The Landscape of Causal Inference: Perspective From Citation Network Analysis," The American Statistician, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 72(3), pages 265-277, July.
    14. Owusu, Eric S. & Bravo-Ureta, Boris E., 2022. "Reap when you sow? The productivity impacts of early sowing in Malawi," Agricultural Systems, Elsevier, vol. 199(C).
    15. Maxir, H. & Almeida, A. & Galvao, M. & Silveira, I. & Costa, R., 2018. "The Impact of the Green-Blue Municipality Program on Diseases Regarding Water and Air Quality in S o Paulo State, Brazil," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277245, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    16. Sebastian Beer & Jan Loeprick, 2021. "Too high a price? Tax treaties with investment hubs in Sub-Saharan Africa," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 28(1), pages 113-153, February.
    17. Fukui Hideki, 2023. "Evaluating Different Covariate Balancing Methods: A Monte Carlo Simulation," Statistics, Politics and Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 14(2), pages 205-326, June.
    18. Jeremy G. Weber & J. Wesley Burnett & Irene M. Xiarchos, 2016. "Broadening Benefits from Natural Resource Extraction: Housing Values and Taxation of Natural Gas Wells as Property," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(3), pages 587-614, June.
    19. Fageda, Xavier & Teixidó, Jordi J., 2022. "Pricing carbon in the aviation sector: Evidence from the European emissions trading system," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    20. Franz R. Hahn & Werner Hölzl & Claudia Kwapil, 2016. "The Credit Channel and the Role of Monetary Policy Before, During and After the Global Financial Crisis. A Micro Data Approach to the Analysis of Bank-firm Relationships," WIFO Studies, WIFO, number 59233, March.

    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:spr:blkpoe:v:44:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s12114-017-9250-4. 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.