The Competitive Equilibrium Model of Legislatures: Theory and Empirical Tests

立法机关的竞争均衡模型：理论与实证检验

• 批准号: 9003074
• 负责人: Kenneth Koford
• 金额: $ 2.59万
• 依托单位: University of Delaware
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1990
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1990-07-01 至 1991-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9003074&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Competitive; Equilibrium; Model; Legislatures; Theory

This project investigates how legislatures determine outcomes - -the level of the budget or the toughness of an environmental law, for example. There are two basic views on this question. The first states that the majority rules: a coalition develops that can pass what it favors. The second view argues that legislators compromise among themselves to find a result that maximizes the net benefits to the legislators as a whole. The two perspectives have very different implications for American politics. Under the first, a small majority could take advantage of the minority by passing something that greatly harmed them - - or their constituents. Parties and coalitions should be extremely important, as they determine "who will win." Under the second view, compromise occurs based on each legislator's view of the relative importance of the issue, and ideology is not important. It is also possible that in reality both views have some validity. In this research investigation the first task is to describe the views precisely and formally, to be clear on just what each assumes and what each implies. This work leads to the second major task of the research: testing which of these views is more empirically accurate. For this purpose the investigator uses a "comparative statics" approach - - showing how some specific change in underlying conditions implies a change in outcomes. For example, a change in the number of Democratic Senators may have an effect on the defense budget, other things held constant. The size of these effects can then be tested empirically. But, most interesting, sometimes the two views have very different conclusions about what will happen. When the"status quo" changes, for instance, the majority rule view often predicts that a bill will replace the "status quo" with a different final outcome from the one originally preferred - - even though preferences have not changed. In contrast, the compromise view invariably predicts a change back to the originally preferred outcome. The different views can be most easily tested on experimental data collected previously to test other theories of how committees function. These data are a "gold-mine" of results where the preferences of the "legislators" are known, and the outcomes are known. Preliminary investigation has found several cases in which comparative statics results support the compromise view. There are also several cases in which the results contradict all current theories; this may lead to better theories in the future. Finally, the different views can be tested on Congressional roll-call data. The researcher has chosen to focus on one policy issue of the late 1970s, which provides a considerable number of roll call votes over several Congresses. The different theories predict that as members of Congress are replaced, the outcome will change - - in different ways. Therefore, this will permit a fairly direct test of the two views of legislatures. If no unexpected difficulties arise, this method would allow investigators to see how responsive the Congress is to changes in the views of the public - shown by changes in members of Congress at election time.

本项目调查立法机构如何决定结果- 预算水平或环境法的强硬程度， example. 在这个问题上有两种基本观点。 第一状态 多数人统治：一个联盟的发展，可以通过它 帮忙 第二种观点认为，立法者在以下方面达成妥协： 他们自己找到一个结果，最大限度地提高净效益， 立法者作为整体。 这两种观点有很大的不同 对美国政治的影响。在第一种情况下， 可以利用少数人的优势，通过一些大大 伤害了他们或者他们的选民政党和联盟应 这是非常重要的，因为他们决定了“谁会赢”。“根据 第二种观点，妥协发生的基础上，每个立法者的看法， 这个问题相对重要，意识形态并不重要。是 事实上，这两种观点都有一定的合理性。 本研究调查的首要任务是描述观点 准确而正式地说，要清楚每个人都假设什么， 每个暗示。 这项工作导致了第二个主要任务， 研究：测试这些观点中哪一个更准确。 为此，研究人员采用了“比较静态”的方法 - - 显示基本条件的某些具体变化如何意味着 结果的变化。 例如，民主党人数的变化 参议员可能会对国防预算产生影响， 常数 这些影响的大小可以通过经验来检验。 但是，最有趣的是，有时这两种观点有很大的不同 关于会发生什么的结论。 当“现状”发生变化时， 例如，多数人规则的观点往往预测，一项法案将 用一个与过去不同的最终结果来取代“现状”， 最初的偏好- -即使偏好没有改变。 在 相反，妥协的观点总是预测改变回到 原本更喜欢的结果。 不同的观点可以很容易地 用以前收集的实验数据来测试其他理论 委员会如何运作 这些数据是结果的“金矿”， “立法者”是已知的，结果也是已知的。 初步 研究发现，比较静力学 结果支持折衷的观点。 也有几个案例， 结果与所有现有理论相矛盾;这可能导致 未来更好的理论 最后，不同的观点可以 国会点名数据进行了测试研究人员选择了 关注20世纪70年代末的一个政策问题，它提供了一个 在几届国会上进行了大量的唱名表决。 的 不同的理论预测，随着国会议员的更换， 结果会改变，以不同的方式 因此，这将 允许对立法机关的两种观点进行相当直接的检验。 如果没有 当出现意想不到的困难时，这种方法将使研究人员能够 看看国会对美国人的观点变化的反应如何。 公开--在选举时国会议员的变动中表现出来。