Publications
Publications
- August 2014
- American Economic Journal: Economic Policy
Friends in High Places
By: Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy
Abstract
We demonstrate that personal connections amongst U.S. politicians have a significant impact on Senate voting behavior. Networks based on alumni connections between politicians are consistent predictors of voting behavior. We estimate sharp measures that control for common characteristics of the network, as well as heterogeneous impacts of a common network characteristic across votes. We find that the effect of alumni networks is close to 60% as large as 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. We show that politicians use school ties as a mechanism to engage in vote trading ("logrolling"), and that alumni networks help facilitate the procurement of discretionary earmarks.
Keywords
Vote Trading; Networks; Legislation; Logrolling; Earmarks; Voting; Government Legislation; Social and Collaborative Networks; United States
Citation
Cohen, Lauren, and Christopher Malloy. "Friends in High Places." American Economic Journal: Economic Policy 6, no. 3 (August 2014): 63–91.
About The Authors
