IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v53y1994i3p347-359.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Political, Ideological and Economic Determinants of Abortion Position: An Empirical Analysis of Stale Legislatures and Governors

Author

Listed:
  • Leo H. Kahane

Abstract

. The Supreme Court's decisions in the 1989 Webster and 1992 Casey cases shifted the focus of abortion legislation from the federal to the state level. In light of this shift, the factors that affect the position taken by state level office holders on abortion is examined using state level data. Results of a probit analysis show that a governor's position on abortion is significantly influenced by the governor's ideology as well as the abortion demand of his or her constituency. Similar probit analyses for state senates and stale houses shows that a constituency's abortion demand as well as factors representing the constituency's demand for access to legal abortion services significantly affect the position both legislative bodies take on abortion. Policy maker's ideology is found to play a significant role in shaping state senates’ position on abortion, but not the positions of state houses’. This last result is consistent with the proposition that policy makers who have a narrow constituency, such as state house members, have less freedom to make decisions based on their own ideology and are more beholden to the views of their constituency, all else equal.

Suggested Citation

  • Leo H. Kahane, 1994. "Political, Ideological and Economic Determinants of Abortion Position: An Empirical Analysis of Stale Legislatures and Governors," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 53(3), pages 347-359, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:53:y:1994:i:3:p:347-359
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.1994.tb02604.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1994.tb02604.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.1994.tb02604.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kau, James B & Rubin, Paul H, 1979. "Self-Interest, Ideology, and Logrolling in Congressional Voting," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 365-384, October.
    2. Conway, Karen Smith & Butler, Michael R, 1992. "State Abortion Legislation as a Public Good--Before and after Roe v. Wade," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 30(4), pages 609-626, October.
    3. Marshall Medoff, 1989. "Constituencies, ideology, and the demand for abortion legislation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 185-191, February.
    4. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(2), pages 135-135.
    5. Medoff, Marshall H, 1988. "An Economic Analysis of the Demand for Abortions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(2), pages 353-359, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Rausser, Gordon C. & de Gorter, Harry, 1988. "Endogenizing Policy In Models Of Agricultural Markets," 1988 Annual Meeting, August 1-3, Knoxville, Tennessee 270460, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    2. Robert W. Brown & R. Todd Jewell, 1996. "The Impact Of Provider Availability On Abortion Demand," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 14(2), pages 95-106, April.
    3. Stadelmann, David & Portmann, Marco & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2013. "Quantifying parliamentary representation of constituents’ preferences with quasi-experimental data," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 170-180.
    4. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Introduction to the Political Economy of Environmental Regulations," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-12, Resources for the Future.
    5. Marshall Medoff, 1989. "Constituencies, ideology, and the demand for abortion legislation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 60(2), pages 185-191, February.
    6. Stadelmann, David & Torrens, Gustavo, 2020. "Who is the ultimate boss of legislators: Voters, special interest groups or parties?," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224562, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    7. Peter Calcagno & John Jackson, 2008. "PAC Spending and Roll Call Voting in the U.S. House: An Empirical Extension," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 4(25), pages 1-11.
    8. Steven Pressman, 2004. "What is wrong with public choice," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(1), pages 3-18.
    9. Marciano, Alain & Melcarne, Alessandro & Ramello, Giovanni B., 2020. "Justice Without Romance: The History Of The Economic Analyses Of Judges’ Behavior, 1960–1993," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 42(2), pages 261-282, June.
    10. James Kau & Paul Rubin, 1981. "The size of government," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(2), pages 261-274, January.
    11. John Lott & W. Reed, 1989. "Shirking and sorting in a political market with finite-lived politicians," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 75-96, April.
    12. Dennis, Christopher & Medoff, Marshall H. & Magnera, Michael, 2008. "Constituents' economic interests and senator support for spending limitations," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(6), pages 2443-2453, December.
    13. Garey C. Durden & Richard J. Cebula & Patricia Gaynor, 2007. "The Impact of Social Conditioning (Internal Motivation) on the Probability of Voting," Working Papers 07-05, Department of Economics, Appalachian State University.
    14. Thomas Tobias & Heß Moritz & Wagner Gert G., 2017. "Reluctant to Reform? A Note on Risk-Loving Politicians and Bureaucrats," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 68(3), pages 167-179, December.
    15. B. Chupp, 2014. "Political interaction in the senate: estimating a political “spatial” weights matrix and an application to lobbying behavior," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(3), pages 521-538, September.
    16. Gupta, Dipak K. & Hofstetter, C. Richard & Buss, Terry F., 1997. "Group utility in the micro motivation of collective action: The case of membership in the AARP," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 301-320, February.
    17. Richard J. Cebula & Garey C. Durden & Patricia E. Gaynor, 2008. "The Impact of the Repeat-Voting-Habit Persistence Phenomenon on the Probability of Voting in Presidential Elections," Southern Economic Journal, Southern Economic Association, vol. 75(2), pages 429-440, October.
    18. Jacobson, Elaine Mullaly & Emerson, Robert D., 1989. "The Influences Of Id Ogy And Economic Interests On Dairy Legislation," 1989 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 2, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 270466, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    19. Roberto Brunetti & Matthieu Pourieux, 2023. "Representative Policy-Makers? A Behavioral Experiment with French Politicians," Working Papers 2319, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    20. Glenn Parker, 1989. "Looking beyond reelection: Revising assumptions about the factors motivating congressional behavior," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 63(3), pages 237-252, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:53:y:1994:i:3:p:347-359. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.