An explanation of the continuing federal government mandate of single-member congressional districts

Stephen Calabrese

Public Choice, 2007, vol. 130, issue 1, 23-40

Abstract: A formal rational expectation model is developed to explain why congressional single-member districts (SMD’s) were mandated in 1842 and why that mandate has repeatedly been re-affirmed. The tendency of voters to moderate the dominant party in the federal government combined with the single-party sweep effect of multi-member districts (MMD’s) creates the incentives for the strongest party to support a SMD mandate. This model performs empirically much better than alternative theories. The model’s prediction that the current SMD mandate is permanent is an example of how an institutional change can endure even if it no longer reflects voter preferences. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2007

Date: 2007
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s11127-006-9070-8 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:kap:pubcho:v:130:y:2007:i:1:p:23-40

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11127-006-9070-8

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().