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FEDERAL Reserve monetary policy, FEDERAL Reserve banks, and UNITED States -- Politics & government -- 20th century

Applying an array of quasi-experimental designs, proponents of causal inference approaches to studying American politics are setting their sights on the study of Congress. In many ways, that focus makes sense: improved research design allows us to draw stronger analytical inferences from observational data, bolstering our understanding of legislative politics. But are the pursuit and methods of causal inference equally well suited to the study of Congress and history? In this article, I consider the application of causal inference methods in historically oriented studies of Congress. Drawing from my coauthored work on the interdependence of Congress and the Federal Reserve over the Fed's first century and earlier work on the institutional evolution of Congress, I point to the tradeoffs between knowledge and certainty that are endemic in causal inference approaches—and arguably especially so in the study of Congress and history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

PUBLIC welfare, WELFARE state, COMMERCE, NETWORK effect, and FORECASTING

We compare the drivers of U.S. congressmen's votes on trade and migration reforms since the 1970s. Standard trade theory suggests that trade reforms that lower barriers to goods from less skilled‐labor abundant countries and migration reforms that lower barriers to low‐skilled migrants should have similar distributional effects, hurting low‐skilled U.S. workers while benefiting high‐skilled workers. In line with this prediction, we find that House members representing more skilled‐labor abundant districts are more likely to support trade and migration reforms that benefit high‐skilled workers. Still, important differences exist: Democrats are less supportive of trade reforms than Republicans, while the opposite is true for migration reforms; welfare state considerations and network effects shape votes on migration, but not on trade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ENVIRONMENTAL policy, UNITED States, UNITED States elections, VOTING -- United States, and LEGISLATORS

Do elections affect legislators' voting patterns? We investigate this question in the context of environmental policy in the U.S. Congress. We theorize that since the general public is generally in favor of legislation protecting the environment, legislators have an incentive to favor the public over industry and vote for pro‐environment legislation at election time. The argument is supported by analyses of data on environmental roll call votes for the U.S. Congress from 1970 to 2013 where we estimate the likelihood of casting a pro‐environment vote as a function of the time to an election. While Democrats are generally more likely to cast a pro‐environment vote before an election, this effect is much stronger for Republicans when the legislator won the previous election by a thinner margin. The election effect is maximized for candidates receiving substantial campaign contributions from the (anti‐environment) oil and gas industry. Analysis of Twitter data confirms that Congressmembers make pro‐environmental statements and highlight their roll call voting behavior during the election season. These results show that legislators do strategically adjust their voting behavior to favor the public immediate prior to an election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BOUNDED rationality, GOVERNMENT policy, FORECASTING, POLITICAL parties, and PARTIES

Since the 1960s, Democrats and Republicans in the U.S. Congress have taken increas- ingly polarized positions, while the public's policy positions have remained centrist and moderate. We explain this apparent contradiction by developing a dynamical model that predicts ideological positions of political parties. Our approach tackles the challenge of incorporating bounded rationality into mathematical models and integrates the empirical finding of satisficing decision making|voters settle for candidates who are \good enough" when deciding for whom to vote. We test the model using data from the U.S. Congress over the past 150 years and find that our predictions are consistent with the two major political parties' historical trajectories. In particular, the model explains how polariza- tion between the Democrats and Republicans since the 1960s could be a consequence of increasing ideological homogeneity within the parties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COMPUTER algorithms, COMPUTER simulation, COMPUTER engineering, and SET design

Recent research has leveraged computer simulations to identify the effect of gerrymandering on partisan bias in U.S. legislatures. As a result of this method, researchers are able to distinguish between the intentional partisan bias caused by gerrymandering and the natural partisan bias that stems from the geographic sorting of partisan voters. However, this research has yet to explore the effect of gerrymandering on other biases like reduced electoral competition and incumbency protection. Using a computer algorithm to design a set of districts without political intent, I measure the extent to which the current districts have been gerrymandered to produce safer seats in Congress. I find that gerrymandering only has a minor effect on the average district, but does produce a number of safe seats for both Democrats and Republicans. Moreover, these safe seats tend to be located in states where a single party controls the districting process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CONGRESSIONAL Review Act, 1996 (U.S.)

The article offers information that how U.S. houses of Congress embracing the U.S. Congressional Review Act(CRA). It mentions that U.S. President, Donald Trump and G.O.P. or Republican Party lawmakers worked on controversial rules regarding the CRA. It discusses that Federal Communications Commission issued rules retracting Obama-era net neutrality rules, Public Citizen performed an about-face on the CRA.

FREEDOM of debate (Legislative bodies), POLITICAL privileges & immunities, ANTISLAVERY movements, ABOLITIONISTS -- United States, UNITED States -- Politics & government, EIGHTEEN thirties, EIGHTEEN forties, CAUSATION (Philosophy), and INFERENTIAL statistics

We investigate the "gag rule", a parliamentary device that from 1836 to 1844 barred the US House of Representatives from receiving petitions concerning the abolition of slavery. In the mid-1830s, the gag rule emerged as a partisan strategy to keep slavery off the congressional agenda, amid growing abolitionist agitation in the North. Very quickly, however, the strategy backfired, as the gag rule was framed successfully as a mechanism that encroached on white northerners' rights of petition. By 1844, popular pressure had become so great that many northern Democrats, an important bloc of prior gag rule supporters, yielded to electoral pressure, broke party ranks, and voted to rescind the rule, thereby sealing its fate. More generally, the politics of the gag rule provide an interesting causal-inference case study of the interplay between social movement development and congressional politics before the Civil War. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

CODIFICATION of law and STATUTORY interpretation

Where does lawgo afterCongress enacts it, but before courts interpret it and the public reads it? This seemingly simple question is in fact very complicated, without a single, predictable answer. This Article provides the first in-depth scholarly examination of the process by which enacted laws are organized and presented for public consumption, known as codification, a process that has mostly escaped the notice of judges and scholars of legislation, and is not explained in textbooks meant to introduce lawyers to the creation and interpretation of law. It argues that the failure to account for this process has left gaps in our understanding of what law is and how it should be interpreted. Law often undergoes significant change between enactment and the time it is organized within the U.S. Code, which is a compilation of Congress's individual enactments. The decision of how to organize these individual enactments within the Code, or whether to leave them out of the Code altogether, is made by a nonpartisan group of lawyers within Congress known as the Office of the Law Revision Counsel. These technical organizers have significant power over how (and in some cases, whether) courts, litigants, and the public see an enacted law, although their power differs depending on the type of Code title. This Article's descriptive and normative claims have realworld application because organization and context are central to interpretation, but interpreters have failed to grapple with how codification affects organization and context. This Article argues that interpreters must understand the full complexity of how law is organized and presented before they can make confident pronouncements about congressional bargains and legislative intent. Understanding the codification process provides a more accurate, albeit more complicated, path forward for statutory interpretation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

RATE of return on stocks and ADVISORY boards

We investigate how a shock to corporate demand for experienced directors (i.e., U.S. Congress' grant of Permanent Normal Trade Relations status to China in 2000) affects U.S. firms' board structure and board advisory role. We find that firms appoint more outside directors with China-related experience after the grant. Firms with such directors realize higher returns around announcements of investments involving Chinese firms and better post-deal operating performance, particularly when these directors reside in the U.S. The appointment of directors with China experience is also greeted more positively by the stock market and they gain more board seats after the grant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SUPPORT groups, ITEM response theory, and MODEL theory

While most common‐space estimations rely upon members who served in both the House and Senate as "bridges" to scale the remaining members, this assumes that these "bridge members" do not change their preferences when they change chambers. Such an assumption conflicts with standard notions of representation, that is, that legislators' votes reflect (at least to some degree) the wishes of their constituents. We examine the constancy of this common‐space voting assumption by focusing on a subset of House members who move to the Senate: those who come from statewide House districts. Using these members as the bridge actors—and thus bridging by constituency explicitly—in a one‐dimensional item response theory model, we find that the standard assumption of chamber switchers in common‐space estimations is technically, but immaterially, false. While there are statistically distinguishable differences in House and Senate voting records for chamber switchers, they are not sufficiently large to meaningfully undermine bridging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

STATISTICS, LIKELIHOOD ratio tests, SCAN statistic, ELECTION forecasting, and POLITICAL candidates

Bandwagons are ubiquitous in social life. No one doubts that people vote at least sometimes for political candidates simply because they are winning and or embrace many fashions simply because they want to "follow the crowd." But estimating how much a bourgeoning trend owes to pure "bandwagon effects" can be very difficult. Often other factors motivate the people taking action to an unknown degree. In this paper we investigate the use of two variable window scan statistics, the minimum P value scan statistic and the generalized likelihood ratio test (GLRT) statistic, to analyze one important form of the bandwagon problem. We show how these scan statistics can be used to detect the clustering of bandwagon events in a time interval. Once the events are identified, the information can be used to set boundaries on the extent of bandwagoning. The method is illustrated by reference to data on political contributions in the 2016 U.S. Senate elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SOCIAL networks, UNITED States legislators, SOCIAL belonging, and POLITICAL parties

Important work has been done to measure legislative effectiveness in the U.S. Congress and to explain the individual characteristics that drive it. Much less attention, however, has been devoted to study the extent to which legislative effectiveness depends on the legislators' social connections. We address this issue with a new model of legislative effectiveness that formalizes the role of social connections, and we test its predictions using the network of cosponsorship links in the 109th–113th Congresses. We propose a new empirical strategy that addresses network endogeneity by implementing a two‐step Heckman correction based on an original instrument: the legislators' alumni connections. We find that social connections are a significant determinant of legislative effectiveness. We also study the influence of legislators' characteristics in shaping the network effects. In doing so, we provide new insights into how social connectedness interacts with factors such as seniority, partisanship, and legislative leadership in determining legislators' effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

STATE governments, UNITED States. Voting Rights Act of 1965, SUFFRAGE, CHAIRS, SMALL states, TWENTIETH century, and FURNITURE

How large a benefit is partisan control of the redistricting process? Do legal constraints on redistricting—such as the preclearance requirement of the Voting Rights Act—alter this benefit? Are institutions designed to reduce the benefit to partisan control—such as redistricting commissions—effective? To measure the effects of partisan districting on the electoral fortunes of the parties, we collect data on the partisan composition of state government, House election outcomes, and moderating institutions over an 80‐year period. Our results suggest that over time, both parties have benefited from unified control, with the effects largest in states where voters were evenly divided among the parties and smallest in states where the controlling party had a large advantage in the electorate. The effects have changed over time, with both parties having equally benefited from control during the middle of the 20th century, the benefit largely disappearing in the late part of the century, and the Republican Party seeing a moderate advantage from control in the current century. The benefits of partisan control were not diminished in states with redistricting commissions. The preclearance requirement appears to have hurt the Democratic Party except when its vote share was very low. The aggregate effects of partisan redistricting are moderate in magnitude—in the modern period, this effect has typically been less than 10 House seats, with the last election where control of the House would have flipped in expectation occurring in 1954. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

INTERNATIONAL relations, LEGISLATION, SANCTIONS (International law), ECONOMIC sanctions, and DESCRIPTIVE statistics

Given the US president's leading role in many areas of American foreign policy, one might expect the president to prevail in executive-legislative clashes over economic sanctions. In this paper, I show that, with surprising frequency, US legislators overcome presidential opposition to their sanctions proposals and induce the president to take foreign policy actions that he or she would not otherwise take. My argument explains why the president often signs and implements sanctions legislation despite considering it inadvisable, as well as how sanctions legislation can influence foreign policy actions, the behavior of foreign governments, or international diplomacy in other ways. I support the argument with descriptive statistics based on an original data set of over a hundred legislative sanctions proposals and a case study of the effects of legislative initiatives targeting Iran over a period of two decades. The paper's findings show that legislative activity is more important than some previous research on sanctions and US foreign policy suggests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

LEGISLATION, FEDERAL government, CHIEF executive officers, POLITICAL affiliation, and POLITICAL science

In this book, Hirokazu Kikuchi delves into the deep waters of Argentine subnational politics to present a fine-grained understanding of the ways in which federalism affects power structures, and how federal actors impact presidential goals in the legislative process. Standing on the shoulders of Mayhew (1974), Kikuchi elaborates on the ways in which the electoral connection works in Argentina, and in particular, how it affects incentives within the Senate. I Senate bosses' subordinates i belong to the same party faction of their Senate boss at the subnational level. I Local subordinates i are agents of provincial party bosses that are not governor or Senate bosses (their principals may be mayors, I diputados i , or other prominent politicians). [Extracted from the article]

GROSS domestic product and STAY-at-home orders

Overview: More lockdowns prompt downward revisions ▀ The recent surge in Covid‐19 cases that has prompted key European economies to re‐impose national lockdowns has led us to downgrade our near‐term global GDP forecast. We now expect world GDP to fall 4.2% this year and have lowered our 2021 growth forecast from 5.2% to 4.9%.▀ Q3 GDP releases show that the post‐lockdown surge in activity was even stronger than expected, but more recent economic and health data confirm that the world has now entered a slower growth phase, with parts of Europe likely to experience a double‐dip in Q4 as their economies go into lockdown again.▀ In Q4, we now expect eurozone and UK GDP to fall by 2.6% and 3.0% respectively. While sizeable, these falls are much smaller contractions than in Q2 as the restrictions are less stringent and shorter than before. In addition, exporters will continue to benefit from rising demand in the rest of the world, in sharp contrast to Q2.▀ The second lockdowns in Europe, even if short‐lived, are likely to leave households and firms more wary about the future and braced for further disruption in 2021. While we expect a bounce in Q1 as businesses re‐open, wariness of further troubles ahead may mean a more cautious response than after the first lockdown, in turn subduing spending and hiring decisions.▀ While the results of the US elections are yet to be finalised, two certainties are evident: the blue wave did not materialize and a gridlock environment now looks likely with Republicans expected to retain control of the Senate. While we expect a $1.5trn fiscal package in early‐2021, the deterioration in the health situation and the slowing economic momentum have prompted us to nudge down our 2021 US GDP growth forecast from 3.7% to 3.6% in 2021 after an expected 3.6% drop this year.▀ Finally, we have revised our long‐term forecasts to include the effects of a further one degree rise in world temperature — see here for more detail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]