 Sunsets and federal lawmaking: Evidence from the 110th CongressFrank Fagan and Firat Bilgel () International Review of Law and Economics, 2015, vol. 41, issue C, 1-6 Abstract: We test the hypothesis that the choice to include a sunset provision increases the likelihood that a bill becomes law. We develop a model where the legislator's knowledge of the increase in passage probability from including a sunset provision influences the legislator's choice to do so. Because legislators may either include a sunset provision to increase passage probability, or observe low passage probability and respond with a sunset provision, the choice to include a sunset provision is endogenous. Consequently, the causal effect of temporary enactment is identified by using the legislator's number of offspring as a source of exogenous variation in the choice to include a sunset provision. Employing recursive bivariate probit, we find that the average causal effect of including a sunset provision is sixty percent. We also find that the average causal effect of including sunset provisions in bills that already include them is about twenty percent. Keywords: Timing rules; Sunset legislation; Passage probability; Instrumental variables; Bivariate probit (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:irlaec:v:41:y:2015:i:c:p:1-6 DOI: 10.1016/j.irle.2014.08.002 Access Statistics for this article International Review of Law and Economics is currently edited by C. Ott, A. W. Katz and H-B. Schäfer More articles in International Review of Law and Economics from Elsevier |
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