IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v85y2004i4p891-912.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Ignorance in Congressional Voting? Evidence from Policy Reversal on the Endangered Species Act

Author

Listed:
  • Edward J. López
  • Daniel Sutter

Abstract

Objective. In 1978 Congress weakened several key provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), which had been enacted only five years earlier. The objective is to compare alternative explanations for this policy reversal. Methods. Probit and multinomial logit models are used to explain empirically how senators voted in both 1973 and 1978, and to investigate why many senators switched their vote from supporting ESA to weakening it. Results. The findings here indicate that party affiliation and policy‐maker preferences were not important to the 1973 vote, but they were key variables in the 1978 votes and the vote‐switching decision. Proxies for unexpected economic impacts of ESA on individual states have little explanatory power. Conclusions. Ignorance, as measured here, does not appear to explain this policy reversal; rather, an influx of relatively conservative Democrats between 1973 and 1978 presents itself as the leading explanation.

Suggested Citation

  • Edward J. López & Daniel Sutter, 2004. "Ignorance in Congressional Voting? Evidence from Policy Reversal on the Endangered Species Act," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 85(4), pages 891-912, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:85:y:2004:i:4:p:891-912
    DOI: 10.1111/j.0038-4941.2004.00250.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0038-4941.2004.00250.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.0038-4941.2004.00250.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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kalt, Joseph P & Zupan, Mark A, 1984. "Capture and Ideology in the Economic Theory of Politics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 279-300, June.
    2. Bender, Bruce & Lott, John R, Jr, 1996. "Legislator Voting and Shirking: A Critical Review of the Literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 87(1-2), pages 67-100, April.
    3. Joseph P. McGarrity & Armand Picou, 2001. "Do Several Winning Coalitions Exist in a State for Senators of the Same Party? Evidence from an Event Study," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 68(2), pages 281-309, October.
    4. Maloney, Michael T & McCormick, Robert E, 1982. "A Positive Theory of Environmental Quality Regulation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 99-123, April.
    5. Landes, William M & Posner, Richard A, 1975. "The Independent Judiciary in an Interest-Group Perspective," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 875-901, December.
    6. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Curtis Bram & Michael Munger, 2022. "Where you stand depends on where you live: county voting on the Texas secession referendum," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 67-79, March.
    2. J. O’Roark & William Wood, 2011. "Determinants of congressional minimum wage support: the role of economic education," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 209-225, April.
    3. Bonnie Harllee & Myungsup Kim & Michael Nieswiadomy, 2009. "Political influence on historical ESA listings by state: a count data analysis," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 21-42, July.

    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. Randall S. Kroszner & Philip E. Strahan, 2001. "Obstacles to Optimal Policy: The Interplay of Politics and Economics in Shaping Bank Supervision and Regulation Reforms," NBER Chapters, in: Prudential Supervision: What Works and What Doesn't, pages 233-272, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Stavins, Robert, 2004. "Introduction to the Political Economy of Environmental Regulations," RFF Working Paper Series dp-04-12, Resources for the Future.
    3. Stavins, Robert N., 2019. "The Future of U.S. Carbon-Pricing Policy: Normative Assessment and Positive Prognosis," Working Paper Series rwp19-017, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    4. Randall S. Kroszner & Philip E. Strahan, 2000. "Obstacles to Optimal Policy: The Interplay of Politics and Economics in Shaping Bank Supervision and Regulation Reforms," CRSP working papers 512, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    5. Stavins, Robert & Keohane, Nathaniel & Revesz, Richard, 1997. "The Positive Political Economy of Instrument Choice in Environmental Policy," RFF Working Paper Series dp-97-25, Resources for the Future.
    6. Randall S. Kroszner, 1999. "Is the Financial System Politically Independent? Perspectives on the Political Economy of Banking and Financial Regulation," CRSP working papers 492, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    7. Roberts, Donna & Orden, David, 1995. "Determinants of Technical Barriers to Trade: The Case of US Phytosanitary Restrictions on Mexican Avocados, 1972-1995," 1995: Understanding Technical Barriers to Agricultural Trade Conference, December 1995, Tucson, Arizona 50709, International Agricultural Trade Research Consortium.
    8. 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).
    9. Ando, Amy, 1998. "Delay on the Path to the Endangered Species List: Do Costs and Benefits Matter," RFF Working Paper Series dp-97-43-rev, Resources for the Future.
    10. Bisin, Alberto & Verdier, Thierry, 2000. "A model of cultural transmission, voting and political ideology," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 5-29, March.
    11. Paul H. Rubin & Mark A. Cohen, 1992. "Politically Imposed Entry Barriers," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 18(3), pages 333-344, Summer.
    12. Christopher John Boudreaux, 2015. "Democratic age and the size of governmen," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(3), pages 1531-1542.
    13. Richard Higgins & Arijit Mukherjee, 2010. "Deregulation redux: does mandating access to bottleneck facilities necessarily improve welfare?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 142(3), pages 363-377, March.
    14. Kroszner, Randall S., 1999. "Is the Financial System Politically Independent? Perspectives on the Political Economy of Banking and Financial Regulation," Working Papers 151, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, George J. Stigler Center for the Study of the Economy and the State.
    15. Cole, Christine A. & Featherstone, Allen M., 1999. "Agriculture'S Shifting Political Power Base," 1999 Annual meeting, August 8-11, Nashville, TN 21554, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    16. 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.
    17. Palmer, Karen & Ando, Amy, 1998. "Getting on the Map: The Political Economy of State-Level Electricity Restructuring," RFF Working Paper Series dp-98-19-rev, Resources for the Future.
    18. Robert Lowry, 1998. "Religion and the demand for membership in environmental citizen groups," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 94(3), pages 223-240, March.
    19. Glenn Parker & Matthew Dabros, 2012. "Last-period problems in legislatures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 151(3), pages 789-806, June.
    20. James B. Bailey & Diana W. Thomas & Joseph R. Anderson, 2019. "Regressive effects of regulation on wages," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 91-103, July.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D1 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior
    • D2 - Microeconomics - - Production and Organizations
    • D3 - Microeconomics - - Distribution
    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design

    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:socsci:v:85:y:2004:i:4:p:891-912. 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=0038-4941 .

    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.