A swing-state theorem, with evidence
我们在一个选举竞争模型中研究地方党派倾向的影响。选民关心政策,但也关心执政党的身份归属,大多数州偏向两党中的一方(即“红州”或“蓝州”)。我们证明,选举竞争能实现福利最大化,但其中对“摇摆州”(即不偏向任何一党的州)的公民赋予了额外权重。我们以经验证据表明,美国关税结构偏向摇摆州产业,以至于生活在非摇摆州的选民被视为仅相当于摇摆州选民价值的82%。这一政策偏倚比“保护待售”(protection for sale)研究中所发现的偏倚高出多个数量级。
英文原文
We study the effects of local partisanship in a model of electoral competition. Voters care about policy, but they also care about the identity of the party in power, with most states biassed toward one party or the other (i.e., ‘red’ or ‘blue’). We show that electoral competition leads to maximization of welfare with an extra weight on citizens of the ‘swing state:’ the one that is not biassed toward either party. We show empirically that the US tariff structure is biassed toward swing-state industries, such that a voter living in a non-swing state is treated as being worth 82% as much as a voter in a swing state. This represents a policy bias orders of magnitude greater than the bias found in studies of protection for sale.