From Preference to Policy: Wealth, Institutions of Government, and the Search for Democracy
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Date
2022-08-25
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
UCL Journal of Economics
Abstract
What is the nature of substantive representation within American institutions of government, and to what extent do constituents’ preferences turn into adopted policy? To answer these questions, I analyze data on federal policies proposed between 1964 and 2006 and constituents’ support for them by running a series of linear probability models to estimate the chance of policy adoption as a function of constituent support. I find the president is more responsive to constituents than Congress, and high-income constituents’ preferences – but not those of median- and low-income constituents – are significantly correlated with policies adopted by both Congress and the president.
Description
Economics Department Honors Thesis.
Keywords
Democracy, Representation, Income Inequality, Linear Probability Models, USA
Citation
Siegel, N. (2022). From Preference to Policy: Wealth, Institutions of Government, and the Search for Democracy. UCL Journal of Economics, vol. 1 no. 1, pp. 150-167. DOI: 10.14324/111.444.2755- 0877.1408