In the face of rising rates of diabetes, many states have passed laws requiring health insurance plans to cover medical treatments for the disease. Although supporters of the mandates expect them to improve the health of diabetics, the mandates have the potential to generate a moral hazard to...

Changes in the terror alert level set by the Department of Homeland Security provide a shock to police presence in Washington, D.C. Using daily crime data during the period the terror alert system has been in place, we show that the level of crime decreases significantly, both statistically and...

Traffic accidents are one of the leading causes of injury and death in the United States. The role of traffic law enforcement in the reduction of accidents has been studied by relatively few papers and with mixed results that may be due to a simultaneity problem. Traffic law enforcement may...

The challenge in the campaign contribution literature has been to overcome the simultaneous-equation bias that is inherent in the vote-contribution relationship. This paper proposes a new method to overcome this bias. It examines behavior at different points of time and relates it to...

The article shows that voting in the U.S. Congress and contribution strategies of political action committees (PACs) are guided not by the median voter model but by a model that emphasizes characteristics of legislators' unobserved reelection constituencies. It also identifies which legislators...

Are politicians who follow a strategy of reputational development rewarded with high levels of corporate campaign contributions? Reputational clarity could help to reduce uncertainty about a candidate and lead to greater campaign contributions from favored interests. Alternatively, such clarity...

This study utilizes the timing of campaign contributions to identify whether the objective of Political Action Committees (PACs) is to influence congressional votes or solely to elect a preferred candidate. The results show that PAC behavior is consistent with an attempt to purchase...