Regulators and Redskins

Bentley Coffey, Patrick McLaughlin () and Robert Tollison

Public Choice, 2012, vol. 153, issue 1, 204 pages

Abstract: We examine the correlation between federal government activity and performance of the capital’s National Football League team, the Washington Redskins. We find a positive, non-spurious, and robust correlation between the Redskins’ winning percentage and bureaucratic output, measured by pages published in the Federal Register. Because the Redskins’ performance is prototypically exogenous, we give this result a causal interpretation and provide a plausible, causal mechanism: bureaucrats must make “logrolling” deals to expand their regulatory power, and a winning football team offers a shared source of optimism to lubricate such negotiations. We do not find the same correlation when examining congressional activity. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012

Keywords: Regulation; Regulations; Regulation quality; Federal regulations; Federal Register; Rulemaking; Wage hedonics; Compensating differential; Logrolling; Football; Redskins; Washington Redskins; Government performance; Regulatory output; Regulators; H11; L51; L83; L88 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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DOI: 10.1007/s11127-011-9781-3

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