No Kin in the Game: Moral Hazard and War in the US Congress

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: McGuirk, Eoin F.; Hilger, Nathaniel; Miller, Nicholas
• 署名单位: Tufts University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI); Dartmouth College
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-3808
• DOI: 10.1086/724316
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 2370-2401
• 关键词: state capacity; CONFLICT; daughters; VIOLENCE; MODEL; long

摘要

We study agency frictions in the US Congress. We examine the long-standing hypothesis that political elites engage in conflict because they fail to internalize the associated costs. We compare the voting behavior of legislators with draft age sons versus draft age daughters during the conscription-era wars of the twentieth century. We estimate that having a draft age son reduces proconscription voting by 7-11 percentage points. Support for conscription recovers when a legislator's son ages out of eligibility. We establish that agency problems contribute to political conflict and that politicians are influenced by private incentives orthogonal to political concerns or ideological preferences.