Arbeitspapier

Guns, Environment, and Abortion: How Single-Minded Voters Shape Politicians' Decisions

We study how electoral incentives affect policy choices on secondary issues, which only minorities of voters care intensely about. We develop a model in which office and policy motivated politicians choose to support or oppose regulations on these issues. We derive conditions under which politicians flip-flop, voting according to their policy preferences at the beginning of their terms, but in line with the preferences of single-issue minorities as they approach re-election. To assess the evidence, we study U.S. senators’ votes on gun control, environment, and reproductive rights. In line with our model’s predictions, election proximity has a pro-gun effect on Democratic senators and a pro-environment effect on Republican senators. These effects only arise for non-retiring senators, who represent states where the single-issue minority is of intermediate size. Also in line with our theory, election proximity has no impact on senators’ decisions on reproductive rights, because of the presence of single-issue minorities on both sides.

Sprache
Englisch

Erschienen in
Series: CESifo Working Paper ; No. 6963

Klassifikation
Wirtschaft
Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
Human Rights Law; Gender Law
Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics: General
Thema
electoral incentives
environment
gun control
reproductive rights

Ereignis
Geistige Schöpfung
(wer)
Bouton, Laurent
Conconi, Paola
Pino, Francisco
Zanardi, Maurizio
Ereignis
Veröffentlichung
(wer)
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)
(wo)
Munich
(wann)
2018

Handle
Letzte Aktualisierung
10.03.2025, 11:44 MEZ

Datenpartner

Dieses Objekt wird bereitgestellt von:
ZBW - Deutsche Zentralbibliothek für Wirtschaftswissenschaften - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft. Bei Fragen zum Objekt wenden Sie sich bitte an den Datenpartner.

Objekttyp

  • Arbeitspapier

Beteiligte

  • Bouton, Laurent
  • Conconi, Paola
  • Pino, Francisco
  • Zanardi, Maurizio
  • Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo)

Entstanden

  • 2018

Ähnliche Objekte (12)