Journal of Political Economy · 2023 · Eoin F. McGuirk、Nathaniel Hilger、Nicholas Miller
中文摘要
我们研究美国国会中的代理摩擦。我们检验了一个长期存在的假说:政治精英之所以卷入冲突,是因为他们未能将相关成本内部化。我们比较了二十世纪征兵时期的战争中,拥有征兵年龄儿子与拥有征兵年龄女儿的立法者的投票行为。我们估计,拥有一名征兵年龄的儿子会使支持征兵的投票降低 7–11 个百分点。当立法者的儿子超过资格年龄后,对征兵的支持会回升。我们确立代理问题会促成政治冲突,且政治家会受到与政治关切或意识形态偏好正交的私人激励的影响。
Abstract
We study agency frictions in the US Congress. We examine the long-standing hypothesis that political elites engage in conflict because they fail to internalize the associated costs. We compare the voting behavior of legislators with draft age sons versus draft age daughters during the conscription-era wars of the twentieth century. We estimate that having a draft age son reduces proconscription voting by 7–11 percentage points. Support for conscription recovers when a legislator’s son ages out of eligibility. We establish that agency problems contribute to political conflict and that politicians are influenced by private incentives orthogonal to political concerns or ideological preferences.