A Graphical Lasso Approach to Estimating Network Connections: The Case of U.S. Lawmakers

Marco Battaglini, Forrest W. Crawford, Eleonora Patacchini and Sida Peng

No 27557, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: In this paper, we propose a new approach to the estimation of social networks and we apply it to the estimation of productivity spillovers in the U.S. Congress. Social networks such as the social connections among lawmakers are not generally directly observed, they can be recovered only using the observable outcomes that they contribute to determine (such as, for example, the legislators’ effectiveness). Moreover, they are typically stable for relatively short periods of time, thus generating only short panels of observations. Our estimator has three appealing properties that allows it to work in these environments. First, it is constructed for “small” asymptotic, thus requiring only short panels of observations. Second, it requires relatively nonrestrictive sparsity assumptions for identification, thus being applicable to dense networks with (potentially) star shaped connections. Third, it allows for heterogeneous common shocks across subnetworks. The application to the U.S. Congress gives us new insights about the nature of social interactions among lawmakers. We estimate a significant decrease over time in the importance of productivity spillovers among individual lawmakers, compensated by an increase in the party level common shock over time. This suggests that the rise of partisanship is not affecting only the ideological position of legislators when they vote, but more generally how lawmakers collaborate in the U.S. Congress.

JEL-codes: D7 D72 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm, nep-net and nep-ure
Note: POL
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27557.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: A Graphical Lasso Approach to Estimating Network Connections: The Case of U.S. Lawmakers (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27557

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w27557

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().