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Friends in High Places

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  • Lauren Cohen
  • Christopher Malloy

Abstract

We demonstrate that personal connections amongst politicians have a significant impact on the voting behavior of U.S. politicians. Networks based on alumni connections between politicians, as well as common seat locations on the chamber floor, are consistent predictors of voting behavior. For the former, we estimate sharp measures that control for common characteristics of the network, as well as heterogeneous impacts of a common network characteristic across votes. For common seat locations, we identify a set of plausibly exogenously assigned seats (Freshman Senators), and find a strong impact of seat location networks on voting. We find that the effect of alumni networks is close to 60% of the size of the effect of state-level considerations. The network effects we identify are stronger for more tightly linked networks, and at times when votes are most valuable.

Suggested Citation

  • Lauren Cohen & Christopher Malloy, 2010. "Friends in High Places," NBER Working Papers 16437, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:16437
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    Cited by:

    1. Jackson, Matthew O. & Zenou, Yves, 2015. "Games on Networks," Handbook of Game Theory with Economic Applications,, Elsevier.
    2. Liu, Xiaodong & Patacchini, Eleonora & Zenou, Yves & Lee, Lung-Fei, 2011. "Criminal Networks: Who is the Key Player?," Research Papers in Economics 2011:7, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    3. Kim, Chansog (Francis) & Pantzalis, Christos & Chul Park, Jung, 2012. "Political geography and stock returns: The value and risk implications of proximity to political power," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(1), pages 196-228.
    4. Octavia Foarta, 2016. "Politically Feasible Public Bailouts," 2016 Meeting Papers 1479, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    5. Chi, Feng & Yang, Nathan, 2010. "Twitter in Congress: Outreach vs Transparency," MPRA Paper 23597, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 22 Jun 2010.
    6. Chi Feng & Yang Nathan, 2011. "Twitter Adoption in Congress," Review of Network Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-46, March.
    7. Berger, Allen N. & Kick, Thomas & Koetter, Michael & Schaeck, Klaus, 2013. "Does it pay to have friends? Social ties and executive appointments in banking," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2087-2105.
    8. Saia, Alessandro, 2018. "Random interactions in the Chamber: Legislators' behavior and political distance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 225-240.
    9. Chi, Feng & Yang, Nathan, 2010. "Twitter Adoption in Congress: Who Tweets First?," MPRA Paper 23225, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • G18 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance
    • G38 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Government Policy and Regulation
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

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