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Is it Economics or Politics? Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress in the Growth of Government, 1930-2002 – revised version: Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress in the Growth of Government, 1930–2002

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Abstract

We expand the investigation of the role of Congress in explanations of government growth, building on the work of Kau and Rubin (2002). In addition to reconsidering the importance of the median ideological position of elected representatives they introduced, we allow for the roles of majority party strength and of party control of Congress. We consider the relative importantce of the state of Congress and of trending supply and demand-side economic factors in the evolution and composition of federal spending since 1930, and we use the resulting model to simulate the consequences of the radical and historically unprecedented shift to the right of Congress in 1994/95.

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  • Stanley L. Winer & Michael W. Tofias & Bernard Grofman & John H. Aldrich, 2007. "Is it Economics or Politics? Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress in the Growth of Government, 1930-2002 – revised version: Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress i," Carleton Economic Papers 07-04, Carleton University, Department of Economics, revised 17 Jan 2008.
    • Handle: RePEc:car:carecp:07-04
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    public expenditure; Congress; ideology; party strength; female labor force participation; trending versus stationary variables;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H1 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies
    • H6 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt

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