Friends in High Places

Abstract

We demonstrate that personal connections amongst US politicians have a significant impact on Senate voting behavior. Networks based on alumni connections between politicians are consistent predictors of voting behavior. We estimate sharp measures that control for common characteristics of the network, as well as heterogeneous impacts of a common network characteristic across votes. We find that the effect of alumni networks is close to 60 percent as large as the effect of state-level considerations. We show that politicians use school ties as a mechanism to engage in vote trading ("logrolling"), and that alumni networks help facilitate the procurement of discretionary earmarks. (JEL D72, D85, Z13) T he passage or failure of any piece of legislation in the US Senate depends ultimately on the individual votes of the legislators. While many influences determine whether a given legislator votes for or against a bill, subtle influences can in some instances be powerful determinants of voting behavior, and thus final vote outcomes. In this paper, we explore one particular channel of influence: that of personal social networks. We show that our identified social networks can have large impacts on voting behavior, beyond those currently explored by the literature. In addition, our empirical strategy to isolate the impact of social networks exploits rich data comprising firms (and employment) in a senator's home constituency, which allows us to incorporate market information into measures of a bill's importance.

The good of the few: Reciprocal acts and the provision of a public bad

“…However, the role of information in enabling collusion has received attention at least since Stigler (1964). We also echo the findings of Cohen and Malloy (2014), who find that the influence on US Senators' votes of favor trading within peer networks is 57% the size of the influence of the interests of a Senator's own state. Our results support the argument of Ackerman and Ayres (2002) that all campaign contributions should be anonymous to render political favor trading impossible.…”

“…Indeed, Cohen and Malloy (2014) find that the favor trading practiced by lawmakers with members of their social networks is responsive to the costs of providing those favors and the benefits those favors will confer. A longer-lived interaction may increase the benefits to reciprocity and therefore engender more favor trading when public information is available.…”

“…This structure may give rise to reciprocal behavior: you support my project and I'll support yours. Cohen and Malloy (2014) document this type of reciprocal behavior in United States Senate votes and earmarks. Favor trading may take the form of explicit quid pro quo arrangements as in corruption or nepotism, or people may implicitly expect reciprocation as when pharmaceutical representatives who give gifts to doctors expect (and see) increased prescriptions of their drugs (Wazana, 2000).…”

The Effect of Holding Office on the Behavior of Politicians

“…1073/pnas.1511501113/-/DCSupplemental. *Our definition (and experimental measure) aligns with extant literature on reciprocity in politics (1)(2)(3). Some scholars distinguish between intrinsic or generalized reciprocity (the habitual practice of repaying kindness with kindness) and instrumental or direct reciprocity (which occurs in a particular exchange with a particular partner) (4)(5)(6)(7)(8).…”

“…* From passing laws in legislatures (1,2,(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24) to buying votes and favors (3,(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35) to reinforcing international agreements (36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42), those in political office frequently engage in the alternating provision of benefits. Theories of reciprocity in politics have their origins in social choice theory.…”