| Jowei Chen |
Assistant Professor,
Department of Political Science,
University of Michigan, 2009-
Department of Political Science,
University of Michigan, 2009-
| Contact: |
Jowei Chen
Department of Political Science
University of Michigan
5700 Haven Hall
505 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1045
Telephone: (917) 861-7712
Email: jowei@umich.edu
Department of Political Science
University of Michigan
5700 Haven Hall
505 South State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1045
Telephone: (917) 861-7712
Email: jowei@umich.edu
Current Research Areas
1. FEMA Hurricane Disaster Aid:
Revise and Resubmit, American Journal of Political Science..
Abstract: Do distributive benefits increase voter participation? We argue that the government's delivery of distributive aid increases the incumbent party's turnout but decreases opposition party turnout. The intuition here is that an incumbent who delivers distributive benefits to the opposing party's voters partially mitigates these voters' ideological opposition to the incumbent, hence weakening their motivation to turn out and oust the incumbent. We corroborate these predictions using individual-level data on FEMA hurricane disaster aid awards in Florida, linked with voter turnout records from the 2002 (pre-hurricane) and 2004 (post-hurricane) elections. In particular, FEMA aid delivered during the week just before the November 2004 election had an especially large effect, increasing the probability of Republican (incumbent party) turnout by 5.1% and decreasing Democratic (opposition party) turnout by 3.1%. By contrast, we conduct several placebo tests showing that FEMA aid delivered immediately after the November 2004 election had no effect on election-day turnout.
Abstract:
How do the voter-mobilizing effects of distributive programs vary with voter income? This paper's formal model argues that the delivery of distributive transfers causes the greatest increase in voter turnout among middle-income recipients; by contrast, the poorest and the wealthiest recipients exhibit relatively smaller increases in voter turnout. The theoretical intuition here is that the wealthy are indifferent to transfers because of the diminishing marginal utility of income. Meanwhile, the poor often lack the requisite resources for participation in politics and are thus rarely mobilized by transfers. To test these predictions, I track the voter turnout records of Floridians who applied for FEMA hurricane disaster aid in 2004. I compare the pre-hurricane (November 2000 and 2002) and post-hurricane (November 2004) turnout of FEMA applicants who received aid against those whose applications were denied. The results confirm that the turnout-increasing effect due to FEMA aid was relatively largest among midlle-income individuals.
2. The Geographic Targeting of Pork Barrel Projects:
The Effect of Chamber Size on Government Spending in Bicameral Legislatures. (with Neil Malhotra)
American Political Science Review. Vol. 101, No. 4: p. 657-676. Abstract
Abstract:
Recent work in political economics has examined the positive
relationship between legislative size and spending, which Weingast et
al. (1981) formalized as the "law of 1/n." However, empirical tests of
this theory have produced a pattern of divergent findings. The positive
relationship between seats and spending appears to hold consistently for
unicameral legislatures and for upper chambers in bicameral
legislatures, but not for lower chambers. We bridge this gap between
theory and empirics by extending Weingast et al.'s model to account for
bicameralism in the context of a Baron-Ferejohn bargaining game. Our
comparative statics predict, and empirical data from U.S. state
legislatures corroborate, that the size of the upper chamber (n) is a
positive predictor of expenditure, whereas the ratio of lower-to-upper
chamber seats (k) exhibits a negative effect. We refer to these
relationships as the "law of k/n," as the two variables influence
spending in opposite directions.
Forthcoming, American Journal of Political Science. Vol. 54, No. 2.
Abstract
Abstract:
How does the electoral geography of legislative districts affect pork
barreling?
This article's formal model revises and enhances Mayhew's (1974) classic
credit-claiming theory to account for voters' uncertainty in assigning
credit for pork projects.
Under bicameralism, every town is represented by at least two
legislators. Hence, voters may be uncertain of which legislator to
credit for each project, giving rise to potential free-riding among
legislators.
Having more legislators who can potentially claim credit for each
project exacerbates this free-riding problem and dilutes the incentive
to pursue pork barreling, a result I refer to as credit sharing among
legislators.
Specifically, a Senator whose district overlaps geographically with more
lower chamber districts will pursue less pork spending.
To test these predictions, I analyze new data on pork barrel earmarks
secured by New York State Senators from 1998 to 2006.
This analysis produces robust empirical support for the credit sharing
theory.
Abstract:
A substantial body of work in political economics has presumed the
veracity of David Mayhew's classic theory of credit-claiming, whereby
legislators enjoy electoral rewards for bringing home particularistic
spending projects. However, recent empirical work has found that voters
are generally unable to credit the correct legislator for each pork
project, creating a research puzzle: How do parties benefit from pork
spending if voters cannot properly assign credit? I revise Mayhew's
classic theory to account for voter ignorance in bicameral legislatures,
demonstrating that party leaders cope with voter uncertainty by
directing pork away from neighborhoods represented by legislators from
differing parties. I refer to this result as Split Delegation Bias, as a
party leader strategically gives less pork to members whose districts
overlap with the opposing party's districts. I introduce new line-item
data on pork earmarks in the New York State Assembly to corroborate the
formal model, using matching estimators to show that areas with Split
Delegations receive 32% less pork, a difference of $4.03 per capita.
3. The Electoral Geography of Legislative Districting:
Why Compact, Contiguous Districts are Bad for the Democrats. (with Jonathan Rodden)
Reactions:
The Wall Street Journal,
The Orlando Sentinel,
The Florida Times-Union,
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune ,
The St. Augustine Record,
The Daytona Beach News-Journal,
The Suwanee Democrat,
Florida Trend,
The Gulf Coast Business Review,
Abstract: When one of the major parties in the United States wins a substantially larger share of the seats than its vote share would seem to warrant, the conventional explanation lies in manipulation of maps by the party that controls the redistricting process. Yet this paper uses a unique data set from Florida to demonstrate a common mechanism through which substantial partisan bias can emerge purely from residential patterns. When partisan preferences are spatially dependent and partisanship is highly correlated with population density, any districting scheme that generates relatively compact, contiguous districts will tend to produce bias against the urban party. In order to demonstrate this empirically, we apply automated districting algorithms driven solely by compactness and contiguity parameters, building winner-take-all districts out of the precinct-level results of the tied Florida presidential election of 2000. The simulation results demonstrate that with 50 percent of the votes statewide, the Republicans can expect to win around 59 percent of the seats without any "intentional" gerrymandering. This result occurs because urban districts tend to be homogeneous and Democratic while suburban and rural districts tend to be moderately Republican. Thus in Florida and other states where Democrats are highly concentrated in cities, the seemingly apolitical practice of requiring compact, contiguous districts will produce systematic pro-Republican electoral bias.
Abstract: When one of the major parties in the United States wins a substantially larger share of the seats than its vote share would seem to warrant, the conventional explanation lies in manipulation of maps by the party that controls the redistricting process. Yet this paper uses a unique data set from Florida to demonstrate a common mechanism through which substantial partisan bias can emerge purely from residential patterns. When partisan preferences are spatially dependent and partisanship is highly correlated with population density, any districting scheme that generates relatively compact, contiguous districts will tend to produce bias against the urban party. In order to demonstrate this empirically, we apply automated districting algorithms driven solely by compactness and contiguity parameters, building winner-take-all districts out of the precinct-level results of the tied Florida presidential election of 2000. The simulation results demonstrate that with 50 percent of the votes statewide, the Republicans can expect to win around 59 percent of the seats without any "intentional" gerrymandering. This result occurs because urban districts tend to be homogeneous and Democratic while suburban and rural districts tend to be moderately Republican. Thus in Florida and other states where Democrats are highly concentrated in cities, the seemingly apolitical practice of requiring compact, contiguous districts will produce systematic pro-Republican electoral bias.
4. Presidential Control of the Federal Bureaucracy:
Federal Unionization and Presidential Control of the Bureaucracy
(with Tim Johnson)
Abstract: Why do U.S. presidents allow the unionization of federal employees, given that unionization weakens bureaucratic control? We argue that presidents selectively use unionization to "lock-in" ideologically like-minded agencies' current composition, thus preventing future presidents from drastically changing these agencies' ideological direction. The intuition behind this theory is that unions protect the job security of employees, thereby reducing bureaucratic turnover and stabilizing an agency's current workforce. Hence, the president strategically supports unionization only in agencies sharing the president's political leanings. Corroborating the predictions of our formal model, we find that agencies with fewer unionized employees experience more frequent personnel turnover and greater ideological volatility when the President's partisanship changes. Agencies with a greater proportion of unionized employees, by contrast, experience less personnel turnover during presidential transitions, and they remain more ideologically stable across presidencies.