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Splitting the Difference? Causal Inference and Theories of Split-party Delegations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

Daniel M. Butler  and
Matthew J. Butler
Daniel M. Butler*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Encina Hall West, Room 100, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305
Matthew J. Butler
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, 549 Evans Hall, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. e-mail: butler@econ.berkeley.edu
*
e-mail: daniel_butler@stanford.edu (corresponding author)
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Abstract

We provide an introduction to the regression discontinuity design (RDD) and use the technique to evaluate models of sequential Senate elections predicting that the winning party for one Senate seat will receive fewer votes in the next election for the other seat. Using data on U.S. Senate elections from 1946 to 2004, we find strong evidence that the outcomes of the elections for the two Senate seats are independent.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , Autumn 2006 , pp. 439 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2006. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

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Footnotes

Authors' note: An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2005 meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. The authors wish to thank participants of that panel, seminar participants at Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, and especially Richard Butler, Mo Fiorina, and Jonathan Wand for their feedback and suggestions on earlier versions of this article. Any remaining errors are our own.

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