全球智库信息集成服务系统(G2TT): No Kin In The Game: Moral Hazard and War in the U.S. Congress

G2TT

来源类型	Working Paper
规范类型	报告
DOI	10.3386/w23904
来源ID	Working Paper 23904
	No Kin In The Game: Moral Hazard and War in the U.S. Congress
	Eoin McGuirk; Nathaniel Hilger; Nicholas Miller
发表日期	2017-10-09
出版年	2017
语种	英语
摘要	Why do wars occur? We examine the longstanding hypothesis that political elites engage in conflict because they fail to internalize the associated costs. We exploit a natural experiment by comparing the congressional voting behavior of U.S. legislators with draft-age sons versus those with draft-age daughters during the four conscription-era wars of the 20th century, when only men could be drafted. Using panel data, we estimate that having a draft-age son reduces a legislator’s support for pro-conscription bills by 10-17% relative to having a draft-age daughter. Then, using a regression discontinuity design, we estimate that a legislator’s support for conscription increases by a fifth when their son crosses the upper age threshold. We also find that legislators with draft-age sons are more likely to win reelection when the draft is less popular. This is consistent with a political agency model in which voters update their beliefs about politicians’ motives when they make unpopular legislative decisions. Our findings establish that agency problems contribute to political conflict. More generally, we provide new evidence that politicians are influenced by private incentives that are orthogonal to political concerns or ideological references.
主题	History ; Other History
URL	https://www.nber.org/papers/w23904
来源智库	National Bureau of Economic Research (United States)
引用统计
资源类型	智库出版物
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.153/handle/2XGU8XDN/581577
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Eoin McGuirk,Nathaniel Hilger,Nicholas Miller. No Kin In The Game: Moral Hazard and War in the U.S. Congress. 2017.

条目包含的文件
文件名称/大小	资源类型	版本类型	开放类型	使用许可
w23904.pdf（621KB）	智库出版物		限制开放	CC BY-NC-SA	浏览