IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_3523.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Lame Ducks and Divided Government: How Voters Control the Unaccountable

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Schelker

Abstract

Electoral institutions interact through the incentives they provide to policy makers and voters. In this paper divided government is interpreted as the reaction of voters to a systematic control problem. Voters realize that term-limited executives (“lame ducks”) cannot credibly commit to a moderate electoral platform due to missing reelection incentives. By dividing government control voters force a lame duck to compromise on policies with an opposing legislature. Based on data from the US states, I present evidence showing that the probability of divided government is about 8 to 10 percent higher when governors are lame ducks.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Schelker, 2011. "Lame Ducks and Divided Government: How Voters Control the Unaccountable," CESifo Working Paper Series 3523, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_3523
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp3523.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    2. Anderson, Sarah & Habel, Philip, 2009. "Revisiting Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress, 1947–2007," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 17(1), pages 83-88, January.
    3. Torsten Persson & Gérard Roland & Guido Tabellini, 1997. "Separation of Powers and Political Accountability," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 112(4), pages 1163-1202.
    4. Binder, Sarah A., 1999. "The Dynamics of Legislative Gridlock, 1947–96," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(3), pages 519-533, September.
    5. Canes-Wrone, Brandice & Brady, David W. & Cogan, John F., 2002. "Out of Step, Out of Office: Electoral Accountability and House Members' Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 127-140, March.
    6. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 1995. "Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(3), pages 769-798.
    7. Chari, V V & Jones, Larry E & Marimon, Ramon, 1997. "The Economics of Split-Ticket Voting in Representative Democracies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(5), pages 957-976, December.
    8. Alt, James E. & Lowry, Robert C., 1994. "Divided Government, Fiscal Institutions, and Budget Deficits: Evidence from the States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 88(4), pages 811-828, December.
    9. Levitt, Steven D & Snyder, James M, Jr, 1997. "The Impact of Federal Spending on House Election Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 105(1), pages 30-53, February.
    10. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2011. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1274-1311, June.
    11. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen & Shanna Rose, 2006. "The Causes of Fiscal Transparency: Evidence from the American States," EPRU Working Paper Series 06-02, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    12. John Sondey & Jing Li, 2008. "Economic Stimulus: Charting The Cautious Course; Econometrics Versus Regression Analysis," Issue Briefs 2008496, South Dakota State University, Department of Economics.
    13. John A. List & Daniel M. Sturm, 2006. "How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1249-1281.
    14. Daniel, Kermit & Lott, John R, Jr, 1997. "Term Limits and Electoral Competitiveness: Evidence from California's State Legislative Races," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 90(1-4), pages 165-184, March.
    15. Alesina, Alberto & Rosenthal, Howard, 1996. "A Theory of Divided Government," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(6), pages 1311-1341, November.
    16. Poterba, James M, 1994. "State Responses to Fiscal Crises: The Effects of Budgetary Institutions and Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 799-821, August.
    17. Besley, Timothy & Persson, Torsten & Sturm, Daniel, 2010. "Political competition, policy and growth: theory and evidence from the United States," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 121718, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    18. Mebane, Walter R., 2000. "Coordination, Moderation, and Institutional Balancing in American Presidential and House Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 94(1), pages 37-57, March.
    19. Groseclose, Tim & Levitt, Steven D. & Snyder, James M., 1999. "Comparing Interest Group Scores across Time and Chambers: Adjusted ADA Scores for the U.S. Congress," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(1), pages 33-50, March.
    20. Hodler, Roland & Loertscher, Simon & Rohner, Dominic, 2010. "Inefficient policies and incumbency advantage," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(9-10), pages 761-767, October.
    21. Coupé, Tom, 2005. "Bias in Conditional and Unconditional Fixed Effects Logit Estimation: A Correction," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 292-295, July.
    22. David S. Lee & Enrico Moretti & Matthew J. Butler, 2004. "Do Voters Affect or Elect Policies? Evidence from the U. S. House," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(3), pages 807-859.
    23. James M. Snyder & David Strömberg, 2010. "Press Coverage and Political Accountability," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 118(2), pages 355-408, April.
    24. Marianne Bertrand & Esther Duflo & Sendhil Mullainathan, 2004. "How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 249-275.
    25. Saeki, Manabu, 2009. "Gridlock in the Government of the United States: Influence of Divided Government and Veto Players," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 39(3), pages 587-607, July.
    26. Mebane, Walter R. & Sekhon, Jasjeet S., 2002. "Coordination and Policy Moderation at Midterm," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 96(1), pages 141-157, March.
    27. Dick, Andrew R. & Lott, John Jr., 1993. "Reconciling voters' behavior with legislative term limits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 1-14, January.
    28. Coleman, John J., 1999. "Unified Government, Divided Government, and Party Responsiveness," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(4), pages 821-835, December.
    29. Olle Folke & James M. Snyder, 2012. "Gubernatorial Midterm Slumps," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 56(4), pages 931-948, October.
    30. F. Andrew Hanssen, 2004. "Is There a Politically Optimal Level of Judicial Independence?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(3), pages 712-729, June.
    31. James Rogers, 2005. "The Impact of Divided Government on Legislative Production," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 217-233, April.
    32. Lee, David S., 2008. "Randomized experiments from non-random selection in U.S. House elections," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 142(2), pages 675-697, February.
    33. Timothy Besley & Torsten Persson & Daniel M. Sturm, 2010. "Political Competition, Policy and Growth: Theory and Evidence from the US," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(4), pages 1329-1352.
    34. Joseph M. Johnson & W. Mark Crain, 2004. "Effects of Term Limits on Fiscal Performance: Evidence from Democratic Nations," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 119(1_2), pages 73-90, April.
    35. Friedman, Daniel & Wittman, Donald, 1995. "Why voters vote for incumbents but against incumbency: A rational choice explanation," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 67-83, May.
    36. Robert Barro, 1973. "The control of politicians: An economic model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 14(1), pages 19-42, March.
    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. Benny Geys & Jan Vermeir, 2014. "Party Cues In Elections Under Multilevel Governance: Theory And Evidence From Us States," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 1029-1058, August.
    2. Bernecker, Andreas, 2016. "Divided we reform? Evidence from US welfare policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 24-38.
    3. Ade, Florian & Freier, Ronny, 2013. "Divided government versus incumbency externality effect—Quasi-experimental evidence on multiple voting decisions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-20.
    4. Alvaro Forteza & Juan S. Pereyra, 2021. "Separation of powers with ideological parties," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(3), pages 333-382, July.
    5. Andreas Bernecker, 2014. "Divided We Reform? Evidence from US Welfare Policies," CESifo Working Paper Series 4564, CESifo.

    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. Andreas Bernecker, 2014. "Divided We Reform? Evidence from US Welfare Policies," CESifo Working Paper Series 4564, CESifo.
    2. Bernecker, Andreas, 2016. "Divided we reform? Evidence from US welfare policies," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 24-38.
    3. Ash, Elliott & MacLeod, W. Bentley, 2021. "Reducing partisanship in judicial elections can improve judge quality: Evidence from U.S. state supreme courts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 201(C).
    4. Smart, Michael & Sturm, Daniel M., 2013. "Term limits and electoral accountability," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 107(C), pages 93-102.
    5. Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Government ideology and economic policy-making in the United States—a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 145-207, January.
    6. Per G. Fredriksson & Le Wang & Patrick L Warren, 2013. "Party Politics, Governors, and Economic Policy," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(1), pages 106-126, July.
    7. Claudio Ferraz & Frederico Finan, 2011. "Electoral Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from the Audits of Local Governments," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(4), pages 1274-1311, June.
    8. Niklas Potrafke, 2017. "Government Ideology and Economic Policy-Making in the United States," CESifo Working Paper Series 6444, CESifo.
    9. Yakovlev, Pavel A. & Tosun, Mehmet S. & Lewis, William P., 2018. "The Fiscal Consequences of State Legislative Term Limits," Journal of Regional Analysis and Policy, Mid-Continent Regional Science Association, vol. 48(3), January.
    10. Alexander Whalley, 2013. "Elected versus Appointed Policy Makers: Evidence from City Treasurers," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(1), pages 39-81.
    11. Mark Schelker, 2012. "The influence of auditor term length and term limits on US state general obligation bond ratings," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 27-49, January.
    12. Mark Schelker, 2009. "Auditor Terms and Term Limits in the Public Sector: Evidence from the US States," CREMA Working Paper Series 2009-19, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    13. Dalle Nogare, Chiara & Kauder, Björn, 2017. "Term limits for mayors and intergovernmental grants: Evidence from Italian cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-11.
    14. George Ward, 2015. "Is Happiness a Predictor of Election Results?," CEP Discussion Papers dp1343, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    15. Chauvin, Juan Pablo & Tricaud, Clemence, 2022. "Gender and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Crisis Response," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 12411, Inter-American Development Bank.
    16. Ohad Raveh & Yacov Tsur, 2018. "Resource Windfalls and Public Debt: The Role of Political Myopia," OxCarre Working Papers 205, Oxford Centre for the Analysis of Resource Rich Economies, University of Oxford.
    17. Mariana Lopes da Fonseca, 2016. "Candid Lame Ducks," CESifo Working Paper Series 5773, CESifo.
    18. Beland, Louis-Philippe & Boucher, Vincent, 2015. "Polluting politics," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 137(C), pages 176-181.
    19. Per G. Fredriksson & Khawaja A. Mamun, 2014. "Tobacco Politics and Electoral Accountability in the United States," Public Finance Review, , vol. 42(1), pages 4-34, January.
    20. Raveh, Ohad & Tsur, Yacov, 2020. "Resource windfalls and public debt: A political economy perspective," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 123(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    divided government; lame duck; term limit;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    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:ces:ceswps:_3523. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    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.