Testing for Necessary and/or Sufficient Causation: Which Cases Are Relevant?

Previous researchers have argued that necessary and/or sufficientcauses should be tested through research designs that consideronly cases with limited combinations of scores on the independentand the dependent variables. I explore the utility for causalinference of the design proposed by these authors, as comparedto an "All Cases Design." I find that, if researchers definethe population carefully and appropriately, each case in thepopulation contributes to causal inference and is thereforeuseful. Previous authors reject this claim on the basis of aview that holds constant the marginal distribution of eitherthe dependent or the independent variable across the workingand the alternate hypotheses. I argue that this restrictionis not generally appropriate, and hence, an analysis that samplesfrom the entire population is logically defensible. I also arguethat this design is more statistically efficient. A reanalysisof two well-known studies demonstrates that sampling from allcases in the relevant population produces greater confidencein the hypothesis than sampling only from cases that experiencethe outcome.     

Congressional committees and the political economy of federal outlays

The literature on the organization of the United States Congress has been dominated by “distributive” and “informational” theory. One important source of disagreement between these two theories is their characterization of whether individual legislators can engage in pork-barrel activities. Here we provide evidence which indicates that the pork-barrel is alive and well in the contemporary United States Congress. We focus on whether members of power and constituency committees can direct disproportionate federal expenditures to their districts. Finding strong and systematic evidence of pork-barrel activities by committee members provides empirical support for distributive theories of legislative organization.     

Citizens, Knowledge, and the Information Environment

In a democracy, knowledge is power. Research explaining the determinants of knowledge focuses on unchanging demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. This study combines data on the public's knowledge of nearly 50 political issues with media coverage of those topics. In a two-part analysis, we demonstrate how education, the strongest and most consistent predictor of political knowledge, has a more nuanced connection to learning than is commonly recognized. Sometimes education is positively related to knowledge. In other instances its effect is negligible. A substantial part of the variation in the education-knowledge relationship is due to the amount of information available in the mass media. This study is among the first to distinguish the short-term, aggregate-level influences on political knowledge from the largely static individual-level predictors and to empirically demonstrate the importance of the information environment .     

The optimal subsidization of Baptists by bootleggers

Rent-seeking bootleggers have an incentive to subsidize the lobbying activities of the public-interest minded Baptists. We demonstrate that unless a certain set of conditions hold, the optimal subsidy will be positive and will provide a moral smoke screen for rent-seeking activities. Consequently, it will be extremely difficult to identify the actual level of rent-seeking from the public interest activities. Therefore, current empirical estimates may well underestimate the actual level of rent-seeking in the regulatory arena.I am indebted to Garey Durden for several enlightening discussions on rent-seeking and regulation and helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Traditional Versus Internet Media in a Restricted Information Environment: How Trust in the Medium Matters

Political Behavior - We use original survey data from Malaysia to explore differences in how traditional and digital media shape the attitudes and behavior of citizens. In closed, and even...     

No Harm in Checking: Using Factual Manipulation Checks to Assess Attentiveness in Experiments

Manipulation checks are often advisable in experimental studies, yet they rarely appear in practice. This lack of usage may stem from fears of distorting treatment effects and uncertainty regarding which type to use (e.g., instructional manipulation checks [IMCs] or assessments of whether stimuli alter a latent independent variable of interest). Here, we first categorize the main variants and argue that factual manipulation checks (FMCs)—that is, objective questions about key elements of the experiment—can identify individual‐level attentiveness to experimental information and, as a consequence, better enable researchers to diagnose experimental findings. We then find, through four replication studies, little evidence that FMC placement affects treatment effects, and that placing FMCs immediately post‐outcome does not attenuate FMC passage rates. Additionally, FMC and IMC passage rates are only weakly related, suggesting that each technique identifies different sets of attentive subjects. Thus, unlike other methods, FMCs can confirm attentiveness to experimental protocols.     

The Motivational Effects of Mission Matching: A Lab‐Experimental Test of a Moderated Mediation Model

Scholarly literature finds positive motivational effects of matching workers and missions. However, the psychological mechanisms behind this matching effect have not been explored. This article develops and tests a moderated mediation model of mission matching in which meaningfulness serves as an intervening mechanism that explains the association between mission matching and effort. It also considers how individual differences in prosocial motivation influence the intervening role of meaningfulness. Using a real‐effort laboratory experiment with monetary incentives, the article shows that matched subjects exert more effort than mismatched subjects, that this effect is mediated by increases in meaningfulness, that prosociality moderates the effect of a match on meaningfulness, and that the indirect effect of a match on effort through increases in meaningfulness varies as a function of prosociality. These results contribute to a more nuanced understanding of mission matching and suggest that matching may be particularly important for certain types of workers.