Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/89675 
Year of Publication: 
2014
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 4564
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
Divided government is often thought of as causing legislative deadlock. I investigate the link between divided government and economic reforms using a novel data set on welfare reforms in US states between 1978 and 2010. Panel data regressions show that under divided government a US state is around 25% more likely to adopt a welfare reform than under unified government. An analysis of close elections providing quasi-random variation in the form of government and other robustness checks confirm this counter-intuitive finding. The empirical evidence is consistent with an explanation based on policy competition between governor, senate, and house.
Subjects: 
divided government
legislative deadlock
policy innovation
US welfare reform
policy competition
JEL: 
D72
D78
H11
H75
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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