Poster #40 - Estimating Executive-Legislative Bargaining Dynamics over Policies: Evidence from Vector Autoregression Models

• In Event: Saturday Poster Luncheon

Abstract

Legislative riders have been used for decades to shape public policy in areas like health, data privacy, and foreign aid. This paper examines how the relationship between legislative riders and veto threats regarding policy content has evolved over time. I build on the work of Hassel and Kernell (2016) that shows that presidential veto threats affect the quantity of legislative riders that Congress produces. Using data from 1986 to 2008, my vector autoregression models show an increasing influence of the president's veto threat on the number of legislative riders that Congress attempts to pass throughout time. Vector Autoregression (VAR) is a powerful statistical tool that allows modeling of interrelated dynamic effects between multiple variables over time. These findings suggest a shift in the bargaining dynamics over policy between the executive and legislative branches, with veto threats becoming an increasingly more powerful tool for the president to exert influence over the legislative process.

Author

• Max Whitford, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author