Essays in executive branch policy influence.
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TextDescription: 117 pISBN: 0599068833Subject(s): Political Science, General | Economics, Finance | 0615 | 0508Dissertation note: Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 1998. Summary: This thesis analyzes presidential influence over legislation through three related essays. The first two focus on presidents' legislative influence from promoting issues to the public, or "going public" as Kernell (1993) has termed this activity. As claimed by previous research, presidential success from going public depends upon presidential popularity and destroys presidential bargaining with Congress. In the first essay, "Presidents' Legislative Influence from Going Public: A Formal Analysis," I develop a game-theoretic model of policy negotiations between a Congress and president who has the option of going public. The model suggests that the literature has significantly underestimated the legislative influence that going public affords presidents. In particular, I find that even unpopular presidents may significantly influence legislation by going public, and that the activity should at least weakly increase presidential bargaining power.Summary: The second essay, "Presidents' Legislative Influence from Going Public: A Quantitative Analysis," tests the predictions of the model with a data set of budget appropriations from fiscal years 1958 through 1989. In order to account for the simultaneity among presidential proposals, final legislation, and observations of presidents going public, I develop a system of simultaneous equations. The econometric analysis provides strong support for the predictions of the model.Summary: The third essay, "A Reexamination of the Asymmetric Influence Hypothesis," is a replication and extension of Kiewiet and McCubbins (1988), which argues that presidential influence over appropriations is asymmetric based on whether the president desires more or less spending than Congress. Kiewiet and McCubbins (1998) develop spatial analysis to present their asymmetric influence hypothesis, and support it through econometric testing. Since the authors suggest that econometric analysis of presidential budget influence account for the asymmetric influence through endogenous switching regime regressions, the third essay is critical to the other econometric analysis of the thesis. In the essay, I replicate the Kiewiet and McCubbins empirical finding but demonstrate that it does not hold with a variety of extensions. I proceed to show that this fragility is not surprising since the theoretical basis for the asymmetric influence hypothesis is incorrect. The essay concludes with a discussion of research extensions.
Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 59-10, Section: A, page: 3950.
Adviser: Keith Krehbiel.
Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 1998.
This thesis analyzes presidential influence over legislation through three related essays. The first two focus on presidents' legislative influence from promoting issues to the public, or "going public" as Kernell (1993) has termed this activity. As claimed by previous research, presidential success from going public depends upon presidential popularity and destroys presidential bargaining with Congress. In the first essay, "Presidents' Legislative Influence from Going Public: A Formal Analysis," I develop a game-theoretic model of policy negotiations between a Congress and president who has the option of going public. The model suggests that the literature has significantly underestimated the legislative influence that going public affords presidents. In particular, I find that even unpopular presidents may significantly influence legislation by going public, and that the activity should at least weakly increase presidential bargaining power.
The second essay, "Presidents' Legislative Influence from Going Public: A Quantitative Analysis," tests the predictions of the model with a data set of budget appropriations from fiscal years 1958 through 1989. In order to account for the simultaneity among presidential proposals, final legislation, and observations of presidents going public, I develop a system of simultaneous equations. The econometric analysis provides strong support for the predictions of the model.
The third essay, "A Reexamination of the Asymmetric Influence Hypothesis," is a replication and extension of Kiewiet and McCubbins (1988), which argues that presidential influence over appropriations is asymmetric based on whether the president desires more or less spending than Congress. Kiewiet and McCubbins (1998) develop spatial analysis to present their asymmetric influence hypothesis, and support it through econometric testing. Since the authors suggest that econometric analysis of presidential budget influence account for the asymmetric influence through endogenous switching regime regressions, the third essay is critical to the other econometric analysis of the thesis. In the essay, I replicate the Kiewiet and McCubbins empirical finding but demonstrate that it does not hold with a variety of extensions. I proceed to show that this fragility is not surprising since the theoretical basis for the asymmetric influence hypothesis is incorrect. The essay concludes with a discussion of research extensions.
School code: 0212.
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