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  • August 2014
  • Article
  • American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Friends in High Places

By: Lauren Cohen and Christopher Malloy
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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.
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About The Author

Lauren H. Cohen

Finance
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More from the Authors
  • Burning the Sails to Save the Ship: The Pilati Family Dilemma By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, Jiawei Ye and Grace Headinger
  • Between Two Minds: The Staglin Family By: Lauren Cohen, Ronnie Stangler and Grace Headinger
  • For God, Family & Steel: Lerman Enterprises By: Lauren Cohen, Andres Aradillas Fernandez and Grace Headinger
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