Michael M. Ting

A Formal Model of Learning and Policy Diffusion

We present a model of learning and policy choice across governments. Governments choose policies with known ideological positions but initially unknown valence benefits, possibly learning about those benefits between the models two periods. There are two variants of the model; in one, governments only learn from their own experiences, whereas in the other they learn from one anothers experiments. Based on similarities between these two versions, we illustrate that much accepted scholarly evidence of policy diffusion could simply have arisen through independent actions by governments that only learn from their own experiences. However, differences between the game-theoretic and decision-theoretic models point the way to future empirical tests that discern learning-based policy diffusion from independent policy adoptions.

Legislative bargaining under weighted voting

Organizations often distribute resources through weighted voting. We analyze this setting using a noncooperative bargaining game based on the Baron-Ferejohn (1989) model. Unlike analyses derived from cooperative game theory, we find that each voters expected payoff is proportional to her voting weight. An exception occurs when many high-weight voters exist, as low-weight voters may expect disproportionately high payoffs due to proposal power. The model also predicts that, ex post, the coalition formateur (the party chosen to form a coalition) will receive a disproportionately high payoff. Using data from coalition governments from 1946 to 2001, we find strong evidence of such formateur effects.

Bargaining in Bicameral Legislatures: When and Why Does Malapportionment Matter?

Malapportionment of seats in bicameral legislatures, it is widely argued, confers disproportionate benefits to overrepresented jurisdictions. Ample empirical research has documented that unequal representation produces unequal distribution of government expenditures in bicameral legislatures. The theoretical foundations for this empirical pattern are weak. It is commonly asserted that this stems from unequal voting power per se. Using a noncooperative bargaining game based on the closed-rule, infinite-horizon model of Baron and Ferejohn (1989), we assess the conditions under which unequal representation in a bicameral legislature may lead to unequal division of public expenditures. Two sets of results are derived. First, when bills originate in the House and the Senate considers the bill under a closed rule, the equilibrium expected payoffs of all House members are, surprisingly, equal. Second, we show that small-state biases can emerge when (1) there are supermajority rules in the malapportioned chamber, (2) the Senate initiates bills, which produces maldistributed proposal probabilities, and (3) the distributive goods are “lumpy.”We thank seminar participants at New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the 2002 annual meeting of the American Political Science Association for helpful comments. James Snyder and Michael Ting gratefully acknowledge the financial support of National Science Foundation Grant SES-0079035. Stephen Ansolabehere gratefully acknowledges the support of the Carnegie Corporation under the Carnegie Scholars program. This paper was written while Michael Ting was at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he thanks the Department of Political Science there for their support.

A Theory of Jurisdictional Assignments in Bureaucracies 1

What determines the allocation of tasks among government agencies? This paper develops a formal model of task allocation that argues that jurisdictions are strategically designed to achieve legislative goals. In the model, agencies choose unobservable policies, and political outcomes are a noisy indicator of these choices. The legislature therefore faces a compliance issue when the agencies’ policy preferences are different from its own. The legislature exerts control by defining agency jurisdictions, setting ex ante budgets and choosing ex post contractual inducements. The principal result is that tasks will be consolidated under a single roof when that agency prefers lower levels of policy than the legislature. In other cases, separating tasks prevents resources from being allocated in a manner undesirable for the legislature.

Elections and reform: The adoption of civil service systems in the U.S. states

Most government bureaucracies in developed countries use civil service systems. What accounts for their adoption? We develop and test a model of bureaucratic reforms under repeated partisan competition. In the model, two political parties composed of overlapping generations of candidates compete for office. Under a spoils system, an incumbent politician can either continue to “politicize” the bureaucracy, which allows her to direct benefits to voters in a way that will increase her electoral prospects, or she can “insulate” the bureaucracy, which prevents all future winners from using the bureaucracy for electoral advantage. Our main result is that politicization persists when incumbents expect to win, and insulation takes place when they expect to lose. We test this hypothesis using data from the adoption of civil service reforms across the U.S. states. The predictions of the model are consistent with the empirical patterns leading up to the implementation of the general civil service reforms. Using both state and city level data, we observe an increase in partisan competition prior to the reforms.

Distributive Politics with Primaries

We develop a model of electoral competition in which two parties compete for votes amongst three groups of voters. Each party first internally selects one of two candidates to run in a general election. Candidates within a party share a fixed ideological platform and can promise a distribution of a unit of public spending across groups. Without primary elections, the selection process is random. With primary elections, an ideologically friendly subset of the voters strategically chooses the candidate. In the basic model, primary elections cause politicians to cater to extreme groups rather than a moderate group with many “swing voters.” The amount promised to extreme groups is decreasing in the ideological polarization of those groups, while each partys probability of victory is increasing in the size and extremity of its favored group. We also find that an incumbency advantage reduces the amount promised to extremists, and therefore benefits moderates.

Legislatures, Bureaucracies and Distributive Spending

This article develops a theory of bureaucratic influence on distributive politics. Although there exists a rich literature on the effects of institutions such as presidents, electoral systems, and bicameralism on government spending, the role of professional bureaucrats has yet to receive formal scrutiny. In the model, legislators bargain over the allocation of distributive benefits across districts. The legislature may either “politicize” a program by bargaining directly over pork and bypassing bureaucratic scrutiny, or “professionalize” it by letting a bureaucrat approve or reject project funding in each district according to an underlying quality standard. The model predicts that the legislature will professionalize when the expected program quality is high. However, politicization becomes more likely as the number of high-quality projects increases and under divided government. Further, more competent bureaucrats can encourage politicization if the expected program quality is low. Finally, politicized programs are larger than professionalized programs.

The political logic of regulatory error

Regulatory error is an issue that has come to the fore following the withdrawal of rofecoxib (Vioxx; Merck) a year ago. Here, we provide a theoretical discussion of the factors that could influence regulatory error, drawing on the Vioxx episode in particular as a possible example of error, and consider the implications for future regulatory policy.

Direct and Indirect Representation

How much can a constituency influence the power of its representative in the legislature? This article develops a theoretical model of the constituency basis of legislator influence. The key players in the model are interest groups that may receive targeted transfers from the legislature. The model predicts that the amount of transfers that such groups receive is increasing in their ability to help a party win a legislative seat in the next election. This claim is tested using the changes in Japanese central-to-municipality transfers after a representative passes away while in office. The study finds that electorally ‘strong’ constituency groups do not lose transfers when they lose their representatives. However when ‘weak’ constituency groups lose their representatives, the transfers decrease.

Comment: Adaptive Models in Sociology and the Problem of Empirical Content1

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