a_db_alumni {econet}

Dataset from Battaglini, Patacchini (2018)

Description

Dataset from Battaglini, Patacchini (2018)

Usage

data("a_db_alumni")

Format

an object of class data.frame with 2176 rows and 48 columns

id

unique congressman id.

PAC

PAC contributions to a member of Congress (in US dollars).

isolate

dummy variable taking value of 1 if the congressman did not graduate from the same institution within eight years with any other congressman.

S1-S65

list of school dummies. Each one refers to a different school. The dummy takes value one if the congressman attended the given school.

S_other

dummy variable taking value of 1 if the congressman attended any other school not previously listed.

party

dummy variable taking value 1 if the congressman is a Democrat, and 0 if the congressman is a Republican.

gender

dummy variable taking value of 1 if the congressman is female.

nchair

dummy variable taking value of 1 if the congressman is a chair of at least one committee.

sen

number of consecutive years in the House of Representatives.

margin_b

dummy variable taking value of 1 if the election margin of victory is less than 5%.

dw

distance to the center in terms of ideology measured using the absolute value of the first dimension of the dw-nominate score created by McCarty et al. (1997).

majority

dummy variable taking value of 1 if the member of Congress is a member of the party holding the majority of the seats in the House of Representatives.

relcom

dummy variable taking value of 1 if the congressman is member of a powerful committee (Appropriations, Budget, Rules and Ways and Means).

time

categorical variable. It takes 1 if the record refers to the 109th congress, 2 if the record refers to the 110th congress, 3 if the record refers to the 111th congress, 4 if the record refers to the 112th congress, 5 if the record refers to the 113th congress.

weights

for each congressman i, the value is equal to the inverse of the variance of PAC contributions received by all congressmen in i's State of election.

References

Battaglini M., E. Patacchini (2018), "Influencing Connected Legislators", Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming.
McCarty, N. M., K. T. Poole, and H. Rosenthal (1997), "Income redistribution and the realignment of American politics", AEIpress.