The politics of beer: analysis of the congressional votes on the beer bill of 1933

Abstract

Nine days after he took office in March 1933, Franklin Roosevelt asked Congress to amend existing federal Prohibition policy so as to allow for the sale and consumption of 3.2 % alcohol beer. Over the following eight days, the so-called "beer bill" was proposed, debated, passed and signed into law. This study analyzes the political decision making behind one of FDR's earliest New Deal policies. Specifically, we consider how voter preferences, representatives' ideologies, national party affiliations, and the influence of special interests affected legislative decision making. We find that special interests and party affiliations were particularly important drivers of congressional voting behavior.

Staying Dry on Spanish Wine: The Rejection of the 1905 Spanish-Italian Trade Agreement

“…goods with heterogeneous quality (Poelmans et al, 2018) 21 . Therefore, I adopt three different measures (to check the robustness of the results): 1) total wine production (expressed in millions of hectolitres); 2) per capita wine production (hectolitres per person); 3) per square meter wine production (hundreds of hectolitres per square meter).…”

“…Weller, 2009;Conconi et al, 2014;Malcolm, 2017;Rodrik, 2018), 4 and "single-issue" policies (e.g. Poelmans et al, 2018). In this context, MPs' voting behaviours have been associated with MPs' personalparty affiliation, ideology and experience, and his/her electoral support -and constituency characteristics (economic and social indicators, constituency interests; see e.g.…”

“…First, in the main regressions I use physical measures of production as proxies for constituency interests. When information on prices and local production structures is incomplete (as often occurs in historical studies), these measures have been used as valid alternatives in the case of goods with heterogeneous quality (Poelmans et al, 2018). Nevertheless, particularly in cross-sectoral studies (such as those using exports as a proxy for constituency interests favouring free trade, see e.g.…”

“…"yes" in the confidence vote), those MPs elected in constituencies where constituency interests are stronger (i.e. where wine production -total, per capita or per square meter -is higher) are less likely to vote "yes" to the trade agreement Thus, I follow and adapt Van Dijck and Truyts (2011),Malcolm (2017),and Poelmans et al (2018), using a probit model to analyse MPs' voting pattern. Operationally, I estimate the two equations -…”

Global Alcohol Markets: Evolving Consumption Patterns, Regulations, and Industrial Organizations

“…In some cases restrictions prohibited certain types of alcoholic beverages (in 1916 Norway banned spirits and beer; in 1919 Finland banned all beverages with an alcohol level higher than 2%, and in 1918 Belgium banned distilled spirits) while in other cases individual purchases of alcohol were limited; or alcohol sales were controlled by state monopolies (Phillips, 2014).10 For an analysis of the political and economic factors driving the introduction and the repeal of Prohibition in the USA, seeMalone and Stack (2017),Poelmans et al (2018) andOkrent (2010).…”