[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/bos/iedwpr/dp-304.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Peer Effects in Legislative Voting

Author

Listed:
  • Nikolaj Harmon

    (University of Copenhagen)

  • Raymond Fisman

    (Boston University)

  • Emir Kamenica

    (University of Chicago)

Abstract
We exploit seating rules in the European Parliament to identify peer effects in legislative voting. Sitting adjacently leads to a 7 percent reduction in the overall likelihood that two Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) from the same party differ in their vote, but peer effects are markedly stronger among women, among MEP pairs from the same country, and in close votes. Using variation in seating across the two venues of the Parliament (Brussels and Strasbourg), we also show that peer effects are persistent: MEPs who have sat together in the past are less likely to disagree even when they are not seated adjacently.

Suggested Citation

  • Nikolaj Harmon & Raymond Fisman & Emir Kamenica, 2018. "Peer Effects in Legislative Voting," Boston University - Department of Economics - The Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series dp-304, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:bos:iedwpr:dp-304
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bu.edu/econ/files/2018/08/PeersResubmitCompiled.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Angrist, Joshua D., 2014. "The perils of peer effects," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 98-108.
    2. Stefano DellaVigna & Matthew Gentzkow, 2010. "Persuasion: Empirical Evidence," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 643-669, September.
    3. Sacerdote, Bruce, 2011. "Peer Effects in Education: How Might They Work, How Big Are They and How Much Do We Know Thus Far?," Handbook of the Economics of Education, in: Erik Hanushek & Stephen Machin & Ludger Woessmann (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Education, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 4, pages 249-277, Elsevier.
    4. Ringe, Nils & Victor, Jennifer Nicoll & Gross, Justin H., 2013. "Keeping Your Friends Close and Your Enemies Closer? Information Networks in Legislative Politics," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(3), pages 601-628, July.
    5. Lauren Cohen & Christopher J. Malloy, 2014. "Friends in High Places," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 63-91, August.
    6. Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Peers at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 112-145, March.
    7. Sanderson, Eleanor & Windmeijer, Frank, 2016. "A weak instrument F-test in linear IV models with multiple endogenous variables," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 212-221.
    8. Stefano Dellavigna & John A. List & Ulrike Malmendier & Gautam Rao, 2017. "Voting to Tell Others," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 84(1), pages 143-181.
    9. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    10. Marco Battaglini & Eleonora Patacchini, 2018. "Influencing Connected Legislators," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(6), pages 2277-2322.
    11. Nathan Canen & Francesco Trebbi, 2016. "Endogenous Network Formation in Congress," NBER Working Papers 22756, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Esther Duflo & Pascaline Dupas & Michael Kremer, 2011. "Peer Effects, Teacher Incentives, and the Impact of Tracking: Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation in Kenya," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(5), pages 1739-1774, August.
    13. Jonathan Guryan & Kory Kroft & Matthew J. Notowidigdo, 2009. "Peer Effects in the Workplace: Evidence from Random Groupings in Professional Golf Tournaments," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 1(4), pages 34-68, October.
    14. Patrick Bayer & Stephen L. Ross & Giorgio Topa, 2008. "Place of Work and Place of Residence: Informal Hiring Networks and Labor Market Outcomes," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages 1150-1196, December.
    15. Camila Campos & Sean Hargreaves Heap & Fernanda L L de Leon, 2013. "The Political Influence of Peer Groups: Experimental Evidence from the Classroom," University of East Anglia Applied and Financial Economics Working Paper Series 053, School of Economics, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK..
    16. Robert Garlick, 2018. "Academic Peer Effects with Different Group Assignment Policies: Residential Tracking versus Random Assignment," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 345-369, July.
    17. Aronow, Peter M. & Samii, Cyrus & Assenova, Valentina A., 2015. "Cluster–Robust Variance Estimation for Dyadic Data," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(4), pages 564-577.
    18. Raymond Fisman & Nikolaj A. Harmon & Emir Kamenica & Inger Munk, 2015. "Labor Supply Of Politicians," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 13(5), pages 871-905, October.
    19. Rogowski, Jon C. & Sinclair, Betsy, 2012. "Estimating the Causal Effects of Social Interaction with Endogenous Networks," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(3), pages 316-328, July.
    20. Nickerson, David W., 2008. "Is Voting Contagious? Evidence from Two Field Experiments," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 102(1), pages 49-57, February.
    21. Masket, Seth E., 2008. "Where You Sit is Where You Stand: The Impact of Seating Proximity on Legislative Cue-Taking," Quarterly Journal of Political Science, now publishers, vol. 3(3), pages 301-311, October.
    22. Pepijn Vemer & Lucas M. A. Goossens & Maureen P. M. H. Rutten-van Mölken, 2014. "Not Simply More of the Same," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 34(8), pages 1048-1058, November.
    23. repec:oup:restud:v:84:y::i:1:p:143-181. is not listed on IDEAS
    24. Ricardo Perez-Truglia & Guillermo Cruces, 2017. "Partisan Interactions: Evidence from a Field Experiment in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 125(4), pages 1208-1243.
    25. Saia, Alessandro, 2018. "Random interactions in the Chamber: Legislators' behavior and political distance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 225-240.
    26. Ricardo Perez-Truglia, 2018. "Political Conformity: Event-Study Evidence from the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 100(1), pages 14-28, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Chad Brown & Paola Conconi & Aksel Erbahar & Lorenzo Trimarchi, 2020. "Trade Protection Along Supply Chains," Working Papers ECARES 2020-52, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    2. Vangerven, Bart & Briskorn, Dirk & Goossens, Dries R. & Spieksma, Frits C.R., 2022. "Parliament seating assignment problems," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 296(3), pages 914-926.
    3. Name-Correa, Alvaro J. & Yildirim, Huseyin, 2019. "Social pressure, transparency, and voting in committees," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    4. Garro, Haritz, 2020. "The Role of Connections in Congressional Lawmaking," SocArXiv efnrq, Center for Open Science.
    5. Das Chaudhury, Ratul & Leister, C. Matthew & Rai, Birendra, 2023. "Influencing a polarized and connected legislature," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 142(C), pages 833-850.
    6. Brice Romuald Gueyap Kounga, 2023. "Nonparametric Regression with Dyadic Data," Papers 2310.12825, arXiv.org.
    7. Nathan Canen & Ko Sugiura, 2022. "Inference in Linear Dyadic Data Models with Network Spillovers," Papers 2203.03497, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2023.
    8. Ximeng Fang & Sven Heuser & Lasse S. Stötzer, 2023. "How In-Person Conversations Shape Political Polarization: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from a Nationwide Initiative," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 270, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    9. Mindock, Maxwell R. & Waddell, Glen R., 2019. "Vote Influence in Group Decision-Making: The Changing Role of Justices' Peers on the Supreme Court," IZA Discussion Papers 12317, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Matthew Lowe & Donghee Jo, 2021. "Legislature Integration and Bipartisanship: A Natural Experiment in Iceland," CESifo Working Paper Series 9452, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nikolaj Harmon & Raymond Fisman & Emir Kamenica, 2018. "Peer Effects in Legislative Voting," Boston University - Department of Economics - Working Papers Series dp-304, Boston University - Department of Economics.
    2. Coveney, Max & Oosterveen, Matthijs, 2021. "What drives ability peer effects?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 136(C).
    3. Zhang, Hongliang, 2016. "The role of testing noise in the estimation of achievement-based peer effects," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 113-123.
    4. Alexandra de Gendre & Nicolás Salamanca, 2020. "On the Mechanisms of Ability Peer Effects," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2020n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    5. Antonia Grohmann & Sahra Sakha, 2015. "The Effect of Peer Observation on Consumption Choices: Experimental Evidence," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1525, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    6. Kuersteiner, Guido M. & Prucha, Ingmar R. & Zeng, Ying, 2023. "Efficient peer effects estimators with group effects," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2155-2194.
    7. Dinarte Diaz,Lelys Ileana, 2020. "Peer Effects on Violence : Experimental Evidence from El Salvador," Policy Research Working Paper Series 9187, The World Bank.
    8. Matteo Pazzona, 2022. "Peer interactions and performance in a high‐skilled labour market," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 124(4), pages 1087-1116, October.
    9. Diemer, Andreas, 2022. "Endogenous peer effects in diverse friendship networks: Evidence from Swedish classrooms," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    10. Saia, Alessandro, 2018. "Random interactions in the Chamber: Legislators' behavior and political distance," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 164(C), pages 225-240.
    11. Emerson, Jamie & Hill, Brian, 2018. "Peer effects in marathon racing: The role of pace setters," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 74-82.
    12. Marco Battaglini & Eleonora Patacchini & Edoardo Rainone, 2019. "Endogenous Social Connections in Legislatures," NBER Working Papers 25988, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Steven N. Durlauf & Yannis M. Ioannides, 2010. "Social Interactions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 451-478, September.
    14. Jones, Todd R. & Kofoed, Michael S., 2020. "Do peers influence occupational preferences? Evidence from randomly-assigned peer groups at West Point," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    15. Fe, Hao, 2023. "Social networks and consumer behavior: Evidence from Yelp," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 209(C), pages 1-14.
    16. Beugnot, Julie & Fortin, Bernard & Lacroix, Guy & Villeval, Marie Claire, 2019. "Gender and peer effects on performance in social networks," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 207-224.
    17. Ingo E. Isphording & Ulf Zölitz, 2020. "The value of a peer," ECON - Working Papers 342, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    18. Yann Algan & Quoc-Anh Do & Nicolò Dalvit & Alexis Le Chapelain & Yves Zenou, 2015. "How Social Networks Shape Our Beliefs: A Natural Experiment among Future French Politicians," Working Papers hal-03459820, HAL.
    19. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/78vacv4udu92eq3fec89svm9uv is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Silvia Mendolia & Alfredo R Paloyo & Ian Walker, 2018. "Heterogeneous effects of high school peers on educational outcomes," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 613-634.
    21. Jason J Sandvik & Richard E Saouma & Nathan T Seegert & Christopher T Stanton, 2020. "Workplace Knowledge Flows," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 135(3), pages 1635-1680.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    seating; influence; European Parliament;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • F53 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - International Agreements and Observance; International Organizations
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bos:iedwpr:dp-304. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Program Coordinator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/decbuus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.