Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress in the Growth Of
Government, 1930-2002

Winer, Stanley L.; Tofias, Michael; Grofman, Bernard; Aldrich, John

Download This Paper

Open PDF in Browser

Add Paper to My Library

Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress in the Growth Of Government, 1930-2002

Public Choice, Vol. 113, pp. 389-402

54 Pages Posted: 13 Feb 2008 Last revised: 21 Feb 2008

See all articles by Stanley L. Winer

Stanley L. Winer

Carleton University - School of Public Policy and Administration; Carleton University-Department of Economics; CESifo (Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute)

Michael Tofias

University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee - Department of Political Science

John Aldrich

Duke University - Department of Political Science

Abstract

We investigate the role of Congress in the growth of federal public expenditure since 1930, building on the work of Kau and Rubin (Public Choice, 113:389-402). The model incorporates majority party strength and the extent of party control of Congress in addition to the median ideological position of elected representatives. We first provide estimates of the relative importance of the state of Congress and of trending supply and demand-side economic factors in the evolution of federal spending. The resulting models are then used to simulate the consequences of the radical and historically unprecedented shift to the right of Congress in 1994/95.

Keywords: Public expenditure, Congress, Ideology, Majority party strength, Party control

JEL Classification: H1, H3, H5, H6

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Winer, Stanley L. and Tofias, Michael and Grofman, Bernard and Aldrich, John, Trending Economic Factors and the Structure of Congress in the Growth Of Government, 1930-2002. Public Choice, Vol. 113, pp. 389-402, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1091274