This study empirically tests the "Culture of Spending" hypothesis (Payne, 199la). According to this hypothesis, the longer congressmen stay in office, the more likely they are to support federal spending. Spending behavior in this study is measured by the National Taxpayers Union (NTU)...

This paper develops a methodology for calculating the expected completed lengths of U.S. congressmen's stays in office. In addition, it demonstrates how this methodology can be used to forecast the seniority structure of future Congresses. One of the major empirical findings of this paper is...

This paper extends the performance-based voting models of Barro (1973), Ferejohn (1986), and Austen-Smith and Banks (1990) by including heterogeneous politicians. The introduction of heterogeneous politicians has three major implications. First, the act of voting must now simultaneously address...