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Voting in the Bicameral Congress: Large Majorities as a Signal of Quality

Iaryczower, Matias and Katz, Gabriel and Saiegh, Sebastian Voting in the Bicameral Congress: Large Majorities as a Signal of Quality. Working Paper (Submitted)

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Abstract

We estimate a model of voting in Congress that allows for dispersed information about the quality of proposals in an equilibrium context. The results highlight the effects of bicameralism on policy outcomes. In equilibrium, the Senate imposes an endogenous supermajority rule on members of the House. We estimate this super- majority rule to be about four-fifths on average across policy areas. Moreover, our results indicate that the value of the information dispersed among legislators is significant, and that in equilibrium a large fraction of House members (40-50 %) vote in accordance with their private information. Taken together, our results imply a highly conservative Senate, in the sense that proposals are enacted into law only when it is extremely likely that their quality is high.

Item Type: Working Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects: J Political Science > JF Political institutions (General)
Research Area: Economics and Institutional Change
Depositing User: Users 22 not found.
Date Deposited: 22 Feb 2011 15:56
Last Modified: 11 Jul 2011 14:25
URI: http://eprints.imtlucca.it/id/eprint/86

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