Explaining Lawmaking in the United States, 1877–1994

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Lapinski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Multivariate Analysis ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
The United States ◽  
Issue Area ◽  
Legislative Productivity ◽  
Aggregate Measure

This chapter turns to lawmaking and shows that legislative productivity varies considerably by policy issue area. Specifically, it illustrates that the key determinants of legislative productivity differ by policy substance. It also provides empirical evidence that questions the benefits of pooling legislation when such aggregation often obscures empirical findings related to understanding the mechanisms of lawmaking. The chapter aims to determine whether pooling policies (using an overall aggregate measure of all legislation) is potentially inappropriate. This multivariate analysis draws on data using two different thresholds of significance. The highest threshold uses the top 500 enactments; while the second threshold uses the top 3,500 enactments. This threshold captures landmarks for very important legislation.

Japan joining Five Eyes would mean tough compromises

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Prime Minister ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
The United States ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Potential Contribution ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Foreign Policy Issue ◽  
Opening Up

Significance The possibility of Japan joining the alliance is now seriously discussed in Tokyo and the capitals of the Five Eyes members -- the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Joining Five Eyes would signal Japan’s even deeper integration into US alliance structures, regionally and globally, and raise expectations for Japan to act as a fuller ally in all sorts of contingencies. Impacts Japan’s greatest potential contribution to allies is probably in signals and imagery intelligence, especially vis-a-vis China. The prime minister will avoid opening up a controversial foreign policy issue so close to a general election; his successor may be bolder. Japan’s partners still run a risk of leaks due to Japan’s lag in cybersecurity and institutional arrangements, but this is decreasing.

An Examination of Audit Quality Surrounding Within-Firm Engagement Office Changes

2021 ◽  
pp. 0148558X2110596
Author(s):  
Adam J. Greiner ◽  
Julia L. Higgs ◽  
Thomas J. Smith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Audit Quality ◽  
Resource Constraints ◽  
Discretionary Accruals ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Analysis ◽  
Quality Deterioration ◽  
Main Association

We examine the relation between within-firm office changes and audit quality in the United States. Our primary analysis documents a reduction in audit quality, measured using abnormal discretionary accruals and restatements, when the client is transferred to a smaller within-firm office (downsize effect). We are unable to find evidence that clients experience significant improvement in audit quality among transfers to a larger within-firm office (upsize effect). We then condition our sample on the change in the number of public clients of the receiving office to better understand the source of the underlying association. We find that our downsize effect is driven by offices experiencing a decrease in the number of public clients, suggesting that our main association is not entirely the result of resource constraints for the receiving office. We posit that this finding is consistent with audit quality deterioration among within-firm office changes to smaller offices driven, in part, by the receiving office’s inability to adequately overcome the knowledge transfer frictions that accompany a move to a new office. Our findings offer empirical evidence on consequences of within-firm office changes and are particularly relevant to regulators and preparers.

Legislative Accomplishment and Policy Issue Substance

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John S. Lapinski
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Substance P ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Policy Issue ◽  
The United States ◽  
Legislative Behavior ◽  
Aggregate Level ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Specific Policy

This chapter introduces a new measure of legislative accomplishment. To understand lawmaking requires that one move beyond studying political behavior in Congress alone and beyond a complete empirical reliance on roll call votes. Moreover, legislative behavior and legislative outputs must be studied in tandem to gain a proper understanding of the lawmaking process in the United States. Although the idea of studying important lawmaking across time is not controversial, constructing an appropriate measure is not a trivial exercise. The chapter constructs a comprehensive lawmaking data set that provides measures of legislative accomplishment at the aggregate level as well as by specific policy issue areas for a 118-year period. It also explains the construction of Congress-by-Congress measures of legislative accomplishment, including measures broken down by the policy-coding schema.

Gridlock in the Government of the United States: Influence of Divided Government and Veto Players

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 587-607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manabu Saeki
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Veto Players ◽  
Divided Government ◽  
Substantial Impact ◽  
Government Effectiveness ◽  
Change Policy ◽  
Party Control ◽  
The Government ◽  
Legislative Productivity

David Mayhew’s Divided We Govern significantly challenged the conventional wisdom of the adversarial effect of divided government on government effectiveness in the United States. While the post-Mayhewian literature has been centred on legislative productivity as a measure of gridlock, gridlock is here defined as an ‘inability to change policy’. In this study, the preferences of the legislators, such as the filibuster, override and House median veto players are plotted in Euclidean space. The analysis focuses on the influence of the area of the winset, which is an intersection overlapped by the veto players’ indifference curves. There is a substantial impact of the area of the winset on the change in policy output point, which is measured by the ADA scores and by Poole’s Mean Winning Coordinate. Yet divided government has marginal or no effect on policy swing. The conclusion is that the preferences of veto players, but not party control of the government, have a substantial impact on gridlock in the United States.

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