Bribery or Just Desserts? Evidence on the Influence of Congressional Voting Patterns on PAC Contributions from Exogenous Variation in the Sex Mix of Legislator Offspring

Dalton Conley and Brian J. McCabe

No 13945, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Evidence on the relationship between political contributions and legislators' voting behavior is marred by concerns about endogeneity in the estimation process. Using a legislator's offspring sex mix as an exogenous variable, we employ a two-stage least squares estimation procedure to predict the effect of voting behavior on political contributions. Following previous research, we find that a legislator's proportion daughters has a significant effect on voting behavior for women's issues, as measured by score in the "Congressional Record on Choice" issued by NARAL Pro-Choice America. In the second stage, we make a unique contribution by demonstrating a significant impact of exogenous voting behavior on PAC contributions, lending credibility to the hypothesis that Political Action Committees respond to legislators' voting patterns by "rewarding" political candidates that vote in line with the positions of the PAC, rather than affecting or "bribing" those same votes -- at least in this high profile policy domain.

JEL-codes: H11 J18 K0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-law and nep-pol
Note: PE POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as Dalton Conley & Brian J. McCabe, 2012. "Bribery or just desserts? Evidence on the influence of Congressional reproductive policy voting patterns on PAC contributions from exogenous variation in the sex mix of legislator offspring," Social Science Research, vol 41(1), pages 120-129.

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