How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy

John List () and Sturm Daniel

Discussion Papers in Economics from University of Munich, Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper explores to what extent secondary policy issues are infuenced by electoral incentives. We develop a two dimensional political agency model in which a politician decides on both a frontline policy issue and a secondary policy issue. The model predicts when the incumbent should manipulate the secondary policy to attract voters. We test our model by using panel data on environmental policy choices in the U.S. states. In contrast to the popular view that secondary policies are largely determined by lobbying, we find strong effects of electoral incentives.

Keywords: elections; environmental policy; lobbying; term limits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H72 Q58 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-ene, nep-env, nep-pbe and nep-pol
Date: 2006-01
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Related works:
Working Paper: How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy (2004)
Working Paper: How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy (2004)
Journal Article: How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy (2006)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lmu:muenec:768

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