Hostname: page-component-77f85d65b8-grvzd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-04-19T10:36:05.343Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Noisy Retrospection: The Effect of Party Control on Policy Outcomes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2019

ADAM M. DYNES Open the ORCID record for ADAM M. DYNES [Opens in a new window]  and
JOHN B. HOLBEIN Open the ORCID record for JOHN B. HOLBEIN [Opens in a new window]
ADAM M. DYNES*
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University
JOHN B. HOLBEIN*
Affiliation:
University of Virginia
*
*Adam M. Dynes, Assistant Professor, Brigham Young University, adamdynes@byu.edu.
†John B. Holbein, Assistant Professor, University of Virginia, jh5ak@virginia.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Retrospective voting is vital for democracy. But, are the objective performance metrics widely thought to be relevant for retrospection—such as the performance of the economy, criminal justice system, and schools, to name a few—valid criteria for evaluating government performance? That is, do political coalitions actually have the power to influence the performance metrics used for retrospection on the timeline introduced by elections? Using difference-in-difference and regression discontinuity techniques, we find that US states governed by Democrats and those by Republicans perform equally well on economic, education, crime, family, social, environmental, and health outcomes on the timeline introduced by elections (2–4 years downstream). Our results suggest that voters may struggle to truly hold government coalitions accountable, as objective performance metrics appear to be largely out of the immediate control of political coalitions.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 114 , Issue 1 , February 2020 , pp. 237 - 257
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

We wish to thank Scott Ashworth, Michael Barber, Adam Bonica, Adam Brown, Dan Butler, Daniel Carpenter, Alexander Coppock, Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Albert Fang, Justin Fox, Shana Gadarian, Matt Grossman, Andrew Hall, Hans Hassell, Greg Huber, Vladimir Kogan, Stéphane Lavertu, Matthew Lebo, Cecilia Mo, Jeremy Pope, Jerome Schafer, Keith Schnakenberg, and Christopher Warshaw for their invaluable feedback; Matt Grossman, Marty Jordan, James J. Feigenbaum, Alexander Fouirnaies, and Andrew B. Hall for sharing data; participants in panels and workshops at Brigham Young University, Stanford University, the 2016 American Political Science Association meeting, the 2016 Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management meeting, the 2017 Midwest Political Science Association meeting, and the 2018 State Politics and Policy Conference; and four anonymous reviewers for their contributions to this project. Replication files are available at the American Political Science Review Dataverse: https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/VGWNP9.

References

REFERENCES

Achen, Christopher H., and Bartels, Larry M.. 2016. Democracy for Realists: Why Elections Do Not Produce Responsive Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahn, Thomas, and Vigdor, Jacob. 2014. “The Impact of No Child Left Behind’s Accountability Sanctions on School Performance: Regression Discontinuity Evidence from North Carolina.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper No. 20511, Accessed at https://www.nber.org/papers/w20511.Google Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, and Rosenthal, Howard. 1995. Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alesina, Alberto, and Roubini, Nouriel. 1992. “Political Cycles in OECD Economies.” The Review of Economic Studies 59 (4): 663–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alvarez, R. Michael, Garrett, Geoffrey, and Lange, Peter. 1991. “Government Partisanship, Labor Organization, and Macroeconomic Performance.” American Political Science Review 85 (2): 539–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anderson, Michael L. 2008. “Multiple Inference and Gender Differences in the Effects of Early Intervention: A Reevaluation of the Abecedarian, Perry Preschool, and Early Training Projects.” Journal of the American Statistical Association 103 (484): 1481–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D., Pathak, Parag A., and Walters, Christopher R.. 2013. “Explaining Charter School Effectiveness.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 5 (4): 1–27.Google Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D., and Pischke, Jörn-Steffen. 2008. Mostly Harmless Econometrics: An Empiricist’s Companion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Angrist, Joshua D., and Pischke, Jörn-Steffen. 2014. Mastering Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Ansolabehere, Stephen, Rodden, Jonathan, and Snyder, James M.. 2008. “The Strength of Issues: Using Multiple Measures to Gauge Preference Stability, Ideological Constraint, and Issue Voting.” American Political Science Review 102 (2): 215–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, R. Douglas, and Carnes, Nicholas. 2012. “Holding Mayors Accountable: New York’s Executives from Koch to Bloomberg.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (4): 949–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aronow, Peter M., and Samii, Cyrus. 2016. “Does Regression Produce Representative Estimates of Causal Effects?” American Journal of Political Science 60 (1): 250–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashworth, Scott. 2012. “Electoral Accountability: Recent Theoretical and Empirical Work.” Annual Review of Political Science 15: 183–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ashworth, Scott, Bueno de Mesquita, Ethan, and Friedenberg, Amanda. 2018. “Learning about Voter Rationality.” American Journal of Political Science 62 (1): 37–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barreca, Alan I., Guldi, Melanie, Lindo, Jason M., and Waddell, Glen R.. 2011. “Saving Babies? Revisiting the Effect of Very Low Birth Weight Classification.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 126 (4): 2117–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Barreca, Alan I., Lindo, Jason M., and Waddell, Glen R.. 2016. “Heaping-Induced Bias in Regression-Discontinuity Designs.” Economic Inquiry 54 (1): 268–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bartels, Larry M. 2009. Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bateson, Regina. 2012. “Crime Victimization and Political Participation.” American Political Science Review 106 (3): 570–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beland, Louis-Philippe, and Unel, Bulent. 2018. “Governors’ Party Affiliation and Unions.” Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society 57 (2): 177–205.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beland, Louis-Philippe, and Boucher, Vincent. 2015. “Polluting Politics.” Economics Letters 137: 176–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berman, Russell. “The Death of Kansas’s Conservative Experiment.” The Atlantic, June 7, 2017.Google Scholar
Berry, Christopher R., and Howell, William G.. 2007. “Accountability and Local Elections: Rethinking Retrospective Voting.” The Journal of Politics 69 (3): 844–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broockman, David E., and Butler, Daniel M.. 2017. “The Causal Effects of Elite Position-Taking on Voter Attitudes: Field Experiments with Elite Communication.” American Journal of Political Science 61 (1): 208–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buddelmeyer, Hielke, and Skoufias, Emmanuel. 2004. An Evaluation of the Performance of Regression Discontinuity Design on PROGRESA. Washington, DC: World Bank.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Busby, Ethan C., Druckman, James N., and Fredendall, Alexandria. 2017. “The Political Relevance of Irrelevant Events.” The Journal of Politics 79 (1): 346–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Daniel M., and Butler, Matthew J.. 2006. “Splitting the Difference? Causal Inference and Theories of Split-Party Delegations.” Political Analysis 14 (4): 439–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calonico, Sebastian, Cattaneo, Matias D., and Titiunik, Rocio. 2014. “Robust Nonparametric Confidence Intervals for Regression-Discontinuity Designs.” Econometrica 82 (6): 2295–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caplan, Bryan, Crampton, Eric, Grove, Wayne A., and Somin, Ilya. 2013. “Systematically Biased Beliefs about Political Influence: Evidence from the Perceptions of Political Influence on Policy Outcomes Survey.” PS: Political Science & Politics 46 (4): 760–7.Google Scholar
Card, David, Lee, David S., Pei, Zhuan, and Weber, Andrea. 2015. “Inference on Causal Effects in a Generalized Regression Kink Design.” Econometrica 83 (6): 2453–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caughey, Devin, and Warshaw, Christopher. 2015. “The Dynamics of State Policy Liberalism, 1936–2014.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (4): 899–913.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caughey, Devin, Warshaw, Christopher, and Xu, Yiqing. 2017. “Incremental Democracy: The Policy Effects of Partisan Control of State Government.” The Journal of Politics 79 (4): 1342–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chappell, Henry W., and Keech, William R.. 1986. “Party Differences in Macroeconomic Policies and Outcomes.” The American Economic Review 76 (2): 71–4.Google Scholar
Chen, Jowei. 2013. “Voter Partisanship and the Effect of Distributive Spending on Political Participation.” American Journal of Political Science 57 (1): 200–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chiang, Hanley. 2009. “How Accountability Pressure on Failing Schools Affects Student Achievement.” Journal of Public Economics 93 (9): 1045–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chubb, John E. 1988. “Institutions, the Economy, and the Dynamics of State Elections.” American Political Science Review 82 (1): 133–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coffey, Daniel J. 2011. “More Than a Dime’s worth: Using State Party Platforms to Assess the Degree of American Party Polarization.” PS: Political Science & Politics 44 (2): 331–7.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jacob. 1992. “A Power Primer.” Psychological Bulletin 112 (1): 155.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cohen, Jeffrey E., and King, James D.. 2004. “Relative Unemployment and Gubernatorial Popularity.” The Journal of Politics 66 (4): 1267–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Benedictis-Kessner, Justin, and Warshaw, Christopher. 2016. “Mayoral Partisanship and Municipal Fiscal Policy.” The Journal of Politics 78 (4): 1124–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Benedictis-Kessner, Justin, and Warshaw, Christopher. 2019. “Accountability for the Economy at All Levels of Government in United States Elections.” Working Paper. Accessed June 26, 2019. http://www.chriswarshaw.com/papers/EconomicVoting_190314.pdf.Google Scholar
Downs, Anthony. 1957. An Economic Theory of Democracy. New York, NY: Harper.Google Scholar
Dudoit, Sandrine, Shaffer, Juliet Popper, and Boldrick, Jennifer C.. 2003. “Multiple Hypothesis Testing in Microarray Experiments.” Statistical Science 18 (1): 71–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dye, Thomas R. 1966. Politics, Economics, and the Public: Policy Outcomes in the American States. Chicago, IL: Rand McNally.Google Scholar
Ebeid, Michael, and Rodden, Jonathan. 2006. “Economic Geography and Economic Voting: Evidence from the US States.” British Journal of Political Science 36 (3): 527–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., Wright, Gerald C. Jr., and McIver, John P.. 1989. “Political Parties, Public Opinion, and State Policy in the United States.” American Political Science Review 83 (3): 729–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faricy, Christopher. 2011. “The Politics of Social Policy in America: The Causes and Effects of Indirect versus Direct Social Spending.” The Journal of Politics 73 (1): 74–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1999. “Electoral Accountability and the Control of Politicians: Selecting Good Types versus Sanctioning Poor Performance.” In Democracy, Accountability, and Representation, eds. Przeworski, Adam, Stokes, Susan C., and Manin, Bernard. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 55–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferejohn, John. 1986. “Incumbent Performance and Electoral Control.” Public Choice 50 (1): 5–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Finkelstein, Amy, Taubman, Sarah, Wright, Bill, Bernstein, Mira, Gruber, Jonathan, Newhouse, Joseph P., Allen, Heidi, Baicker, Katherine, and Oregon Health Study Group. 2012. “The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 127 (3): 1057–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1978. “Economic Retrospective Voting in American National Elections: A Micro-Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 22 (2): 426–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fiorina, Morris P. 1981. Retrospective Voting in American National Elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Folke, Olle, and Snyder, James M.. 2012. “Gubernatorial Midterm Slumps.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (4): 931–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, Anthony, and Hall, Andrew B.. 2018. “Do Shark Attacks Influence Presidential Elections? Reassessing a Prominent Finding on Voter Competence.” The Journal of Politics 80 (4): 1423–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fowler, Anthony, and Montagnes, B. Pablo. 2015. “College Football, Elections, and False-Positive Results in Observational Research.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112 (45): 13800–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fox, Justin, and Shotts, Kenneth W.. 2009. “Delegates or Trustees? A Theory of Political Accountability.” The Journal of Politics 71 (4): 1225–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Franco, Annie, Malhotra, Neil, and Simonovits, Gabor. 2014. “Publication Bias in the Social Sciences: Unlocking the File Drawer.” Science 345 (6203): 1502–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gasper, John T., and Reeves, Andrew. 2011. “Make it Rain? Retrospection and the Attentive Electorate in the Context of Natural Disasters.” American Journal of Political Science 55 (2): 340–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, and Carlin, John. 2014. “Beyond Power Calculations: Assessing Type S (Sign) and Type M (Magnitude) Errors.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 9 (6): 641–51.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grant, Ruth W., and Keohane, Robert O.. 2005. “Accountability and Abuses of Power in World Politics.” American Political Science Review 99 (1): 29–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Green, Donald P., Leong, Terence Y., Kern, Holger L., Gerber, Alan S., and Larimer, Christopher W.. 2009. “Testing the Accuracy of Regression Discontinuity Analysis Using Experimental Benchmarks.” Political Analysis 17 (4): 400–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grimmer, Justin, Messing, Solomon, and Westwood, Sean J.. 2012. “How Words and Money Cultivate a Personal Vote: The Effect of Legislator Credit Claiming on Constituent Credit Allocation.” American Political Science Review 106 (4): 703–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grofman, Bernard. 2004. “Downs and Two-Party Convergence.” Annual Review of Political Science 7 (1): 25–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grose, Christian R., and Oppenheimer, Bruce I.. 2007. “The Iraq War, Partisanship, and Candidate Attributes: Variation in Partisan Swing in the 2006 US House Elections.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 32 (4): 531–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gross, Justin H. 2015. “Testing What Matters (If You Must Test at All): A Context-Driven Approach to Substantive and Statistical Significance.” American Journal of Political Science 59 (3): 775–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, Matt. Forthcoming. Red State Blues: How the Conservative Revolution Stalled in the States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Grumbach, Jacob M. 2018. “From Backwaters to Major Policymakers: Policy Polarization in the States, 1970–2014.” Perspectives on Politics 16 (2): 416–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob S., and Pierson, Paul. 2010. “Winner-Take-All Politics: Public Policy, Political Organization, and the Precipitous Rise of Top Incomes in the United States.” Politics & Society 38 (2): 152–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hacker, Jacob, and Pierson, Paul. “The Path to Prosperity is Blue.” New York Times, July 30, 2016.Google Scholar
Hall, Andrew B., Feigenbaum, James J., and Fouirnaies, Alexader. 2017. “The Majority-Party Disadvantage: Revising Theories of Legislative Organization.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 12: 269–300.Google Scholar
Hall, Andrew B., Yoder, Jesse, and Karandikar, Nishant. 2019. “Economic Distress and Voting: Evidence from the Subprime Mortgage Crisis.” Working Paper. Accessed June 26, 2019. http://www.andrewbenjaminhall.com/HKY_foreclosures.pdf.Google Scholar
Hansen, Susan B. 1999a. “Governors’ Job Performance Ratings and State Unemployment: The Case of California.” State and Local Government Review 31 (1): 7–17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, Susan B. 1999b. “‘Life Is Not Fair’: Governors’ Job Performance Ratings and State Economies.” Political Research Quarterly 52 (1): 167–88.Google Scholar
Hartman, Erin, and Hidalgo, F. Daniel. 2018. “An Equivalence Approach to Balance and Placebo Tests.” American Journal of Political Science 62 (4): 1000–13.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haushofer, Johannes, and Shapiro, Jeremy. 2016. “The Short-Term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: Experimental Evidence from Kenya.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 131 (4): 1973–2042.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Healy, Andrew, and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2014. “Substituting the End for the Whole: Why Voters Respond Primarily to the Election-Year Economy.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (1): 31–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Healy, Andrew, and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2017. “Presidential Voting and the Local Economy: Evidence from Two Population-Based Data Sets.” The Journal of Politics 79 (4): 1419–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Healy, Andrew J., Persson, Mikael, and Snowberg, Erik. 2017. “Digging into the Pocketbook: Evidence on Economic Voting from Income Registry Data Matched to a Voter Survey.” American Political Science Review 111 (4): 771–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Healy, Andrew J., Malhotra, Neil, and Mo, Cecilia Hyunjung. 2010. “Irrelevant Events Affect Voters’ Evaluations of Government Performance.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 107 (29): 12804–9.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Healy, Andrew, and Malhotra, Neil. 2009. “Myopic Voters and Natural Disaster Policy.” American Political Science Review 103 (3): 387–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Healy, Andrew, and Malhotra, Neil. 2013. “Retrospective Voting Reconsidered.” Annual Review of Political Science 16: 285–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hertel-Fernandez, Alex. 2019. State Capture: How Conservative Activists, Big Businesses, and Wealthy Donors Reshaped the American States–And the Nation. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hibbs, Douglas A. 1977. “Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy.” American Political Science Review 71 (4): 1467–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogan, Robert E. 2005. “Gubernatorial Coattail Effects in State Legislative Elections.” Political Research Quarterly 58 (4): 587–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Holbein, John. 2016. “Left Behind? Citizen Responsiveness to Government Performance Information.” American Political Science Review 110 (2): 353–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horsford, Sonya Douglass. 2010. New Perspectives in Educational Leadership: Exploring Social, Political, and Community Contexts and Meaning. New York, NY: Peter Lang Inc.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huber, Gregory A., Hill, Seth J., and Lenz, Gabriel S.. 2012. “Sources of Bias in Retrospective Decision Making: Experimental Evidence on Voters’ Limitations in Controlling Incumbents.” American Political Science Review 106 (4): 720–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imbens, Guido W., and Lemieux, Thomas. 2008. “Regression Discontinuity Designs: A Guide to Practice.” Journal of Econometrics 142 (2): 615–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jardim, Ekaterina, Long, Mark C., Plotnick, Robert, Van Inwegen, Emma, Vigdor, Jacob, and Wething, Hilary. 2017. “Minimum Wage Increases, Wages, and Low-Wage Employment: Evidence from Seattle.” National Bureau of Economic Research. Working Paper No. 23532. Accessed at https://www.nber.org/papers/w23532.Google Scholar
Jennings, Edward T. 1979. “Competition, Constituencies, and Welfare Policies in American States.” American Political Science Review 73 (2): 414–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, Damon, Molitor, David, and Reif, Julian. 2018. “What Do Workplace Wellness Programs Do? Evidence from the Illinois Workplace Wellness Study.” Working Paper, National Bureau of Economic Research.Google Scholar
Jordan, Marty P., and Grossmann, Matt. 2019. The Correlates of State Policy Project v.1.0. East Lansing, MI: Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at Michigan State University. Accessed May 1, 2019. https://www.ippsr.msu.edu/public-policy/correlates-state-policy.Google Scholar
Keita, Sekou, and Mandon, Pierre. 2017. “Give a Fish or Teach Fishing? Partisan Affiliation of US Governors and the Poverty Status of Immigrants.” European Journal of Political Economy 55: 65–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemp, Kathleen A. 1978. “Nationalization of the American States A Test of the Thesis.” American Politics Quarterly 6 (2): 237–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
KeyV.O., Jr V.O., Jr. 1955. Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups. New York, NY: Crowell.Google Scholar
KeyV.O., Jr V.O., Jr. 1966. The Responsible Electorate. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
King, James D. 2001. “Incumbent Popularity and Vote Choice in Gubernatorial Elections.” The Journal of Politics 63 (2): 585–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kogan, Vladimir, Lavertu, Stephane, and Peskowitz, Zachary. 2016. “Performance Federalism and Local Democracy: Theory and Evidence from School Tax Referenda.” American Journal of Political Science 60 (2): 418–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kousser, Thad, and Phillips, Justin H.. 2012. The Power of American Governors: Winning on Budgets and Losing on Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kramer, Gerald H. 1971. “Short-Term Fluctuations in US Voting Behavior, 1896–1964.” American Political Science Review 65 (1): 131–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, David S. 2008. “Randomized Experiments from Non-Random Selection in US House Elections.” Journal of Econometrics 142 (2): 675–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, David S., and Lemieux, Thomas. 2010. “Regression Discontinuity Designs in Economics.” Journal of Economic Literature 48: 281–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leigh, Andrew. 2008. “Estimating the Impact of Gubernatorial Partisanship on Policy Settings and Economic Outcomes: A Regression Discontinuity Approach.” European Journal of Political Economy 24 (1): 256–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemieux, Thomas, and Milligan, Kevin. 2008. “Incentive Effects of Social Assistance: A Regression Discontinuity Approach.” Journal of Econometrics 142 (2): 807–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lenz, Gabriel S. 2013. Follow the Leader? How Voters Respond to Politicians’ Policies and Performance. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Lowry, Robert C., Alt, James E., and Ferree, Karen E.. 1998. “Fiscal Policy Outcomes and Electoral Accountability in American States.” American Political Science Review 92 (4): 759–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludwig, Jens, and Cook, Philip J.. 2000. “Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated with Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.” Journal of the American Medical Association 284 (5): 585–91.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Markus, Gregory B. 1988. “The Impact of Personal and National Economic Conditions on the Presidential Vote: A Pooled Cross-Sectional Analysis.” American Journal of Political Science 32: 137–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCaskey, Kelly, and Rainey, Carlisle. 2015. “Substantive Importance and the Veil of Statistical Significance.” Statistics, Politics, and Policy 6 (1–2): 77–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moncrief, Gary F., and Squire, Peverill. 2017. Why States Matter: An Introduction to State Politics. Lanham, MA: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Newhouse, Joseph P., and the Insurance Experiment Group. 1993. Free for All? Lessons from the RAND Health Insurance experiment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Niemi, Richard G., Stanley, Harold W., and Vogel, Ronald J.. 1995. “State Economies and State Taxes: Do Voters Hold Governors Accountable?” American Journal of Political Science 39 (4): 936.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nirappil, Fenit. “Potential Chaos Ahead as Control of Virginia House of Delegates Hangs in Balance.” The Washington Post, November 8, 2017.Google Scholar
Orth, Deborah A. 2001. “Accountability in a Federal System: The Governor, the President, and Economic Expectations.” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 1 (4): 412–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Papay, John P., Willett, John B., and Murnane, Richard J.. 2011. “Extending the Regression-Discontinuity Approach to Multiple Assignment Variables.” Journal of Econometrics 161 (2): 203–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Partin, Randall W. 1995. “Economic Conditions and Gubernatorial Elections: Is the State Executive Held Accountable?” American Politics Quarterly 23 (1): 81–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Podgursky, Michael J., and Springer, Matthew G.. 2007. “Teacher Performance Pay: A Review.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 26 (4): 909–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Potrafke, Niklas. 2018. “Government Ideology and Economic Policy-Making in the United States—A Survey.” Public Choice 174 (1–2): 145–207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rainey, Carlisle. 2014. “Arguing for a Negligible Effect.” American Journal of Political Science 58 (4): 1083–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, W. Robert. 2006. “Democrats, Republicans, and Taxes: Evidence that Political Parties Matter.” Journal of Public Economics 90 (4–5): 725–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, Steven. 2016. “National Forces in State Legislative Elections.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 667 (1): 207–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, Steven. 2017. “Electoral Accountability for State Legislative Roll Calls and Ideological Representation.” American Political Science Review 111 (3): 555–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose, Douglas D. 1973. “National and Local Forces in State Politics: The Implications of Multi-Level Policy Analysis.” American Political Science Review 67 (4): 1162–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuels, David J. 2002. “Pork Barreling Is Not Credit Claiming or Advertising: Campaign Finance and the Sources of the Personal Vote in Brazil.” The Journal of Politics 64 (3): 845–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sances, Michael W. 2017. “Attribution Errors in Federalist Systems: When Voters Punish the President for Local Tax Increases.” The Journal of Politics 79 (4): 1286–301.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffner, Brian F., Streb, Matthew, and Wright, Gerald. 2001. “Teams without Uniforms: The Nonpartisan Ballot in State and Local Elections.” Political Research Quarterly 54 (1): 7–30.Google Scholar
Shaffer, Juliet Popper. 1995. “Multiple Hypothesis Testing.” Annual Review of Psychology 46: 561.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shaker, Lee. 2009. “Citizens’ Local Political Knowledge and the Role of Media Access.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 86 (4): 809–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shor, Boris, and McCarty, Nolan. 2011. “The Ideological Mapping of American Legislatures.” American Political Science Review 105 (3): 530–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Somin, Ilya. 2016. Democracy and Political Ignorance: Why Smaller Government Is Smarter. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Turner, Robert C. 2003. “The Political Economy of Gubernatorial Smokestack Chasing: Bad Policy and Bad Politics?” State Politics and Policy Quarterly 3 (3): 270–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Volden, Craig. 2005. “Intergovernmental Political Competition in American Federalism.” American Journal of Political Science 49 (2): 327–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weaver, R. Kent. 1986. “The Politics of Blame Avoidance.” Journal of Public Policy 6 (4): 371–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Westfall, Peter H., and Young, S. Stanley. 1993. Resampling-based Multiple Testing: Examples and Methods for P-Value Adjustment. New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Wing, Coady, Simon, Kosali, and Bello-Gomez, Ricardo A.. 2018. “Designing Difference in Difference Studies: Best Practices for Public Health Policy Research.” Annual Review of Public Health 39: 453–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Winters, Richard. 1976. “Party Control and Policy Change.” American Journal of Political Science 20 (4): 597–636.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woon, Jonathan. 2012. “Democratic Accountability and Retrospective Voting: A Laboratory experiment.” American Journal of Political Science 56 (4): 913–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yokum, David, Ravishankar, Anita, and Coppock, Alexander. 2017. “Evaluating the Effects of Police Body-Worn Cameras: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Working Paper for The Lab @ DC. Accessed at https://bwc.thelab.dc.gov/TheLabDC_MPD_BWC_Working_Paper_10.20.17.pdf.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Dynes and Holbein supplementary material

Dynes and Holbein supplementary material

Download Dynes and Holbein supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 4.5 MB
Submit a response

Comments

No Comments have been published for this article.