Legislator Gender and Trade Policy Preference

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Date

2011-03-16T20:52:42Z

Authors

Yoder, Nathan

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Publisher

University of Oregon

Abstract

In this paper, I seek to determine whether the robust gender difference in preferences for trade protection shown in surveys of individuals extends to legislators' votes in the U.S. House of Representatives. Since this phenomenon would equate with a voting pattern other than that which most benefits their constituents and their party, it could show that demographic characteristics of legislators can cause them to "shirk" the interests of their constituents and their party. I examine a large 20-year sample of House votes on trade policy combined with a dataset of congressional district characteristics and legislator gender. I find that protectionist voting is not significantly correlated with legislator gender when controlling for unobserved heterogeneity between districts.

Description

Submitted to the Undergraduate Library Research Award scholarship competition: 2010-2011. 20 p.

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