TY  - JOUR
AU  - List,John A.
AU  - Sturm,Daniel M.
TI  - How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10609
PY  - 2004
Y2  - July 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10609
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10609.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John List
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th
Chicago, IL 60637
Tel: 301/405-1288
Fax: 301/314-9091
E-Mail: jlist@uchicago.edu
AB  - In this paper we explore to what extent secondary policy issues are influenced by electoral incentives. We develop a political agency model in which a politician  decides on both a frontline policy issue, such as the level of public spending, and a secondary policy issue, such as environmental policy. The model shows under which conditions the incumbent finds it worthwhile to manipulate the secondary policy to attract additional votes to his platform. We test the predictions of the model using state-level panel data on Gubernatorial environmental policy choices over the years 1960-2000. In contrast to the popular view that choices on secondary policy instruments are largely determined by lobbying, we find strong effects of electoral incentives on environmental policy.
ER  -