The effects on legislative structure and political parties in the state: Evidence from state fiscal policy and unemployment insurance

This dissertation is an empirical examination of how political party control of the legislature affects state government budgets. The research examines whether Democratic or Republican control affects the size of the state budget, as well as its composition among alternative taxing and spending categories. The innovative approach to this problem is careful modeling of political competition at three levels; within each house of the legislature, between the legislative houses, and between the legislature and the executive (Governor). The effects of party control on each legislative house are found to depend crucially on the party affiliation of the Governor, and of the other chamber of the legislature. Within chamber competition is also found to be important, although only weak support for the degree of representation is found (the number of legislators). These results are obtained by looking at the overall level of spending, as well as the share of total spending on each category. Surprisingly, Democrats at the state level on average do not support higher public spending than Republicans, although there are significant differences in the categories of spending each party supports. Rather, however, disparity in party control is found to lead to higher spending than complete control (both houses and the Governorship) by either party.;The thesis broadly investigates two main theories of government behavior, although through several manifestations. One theory is that political competition causes government spending to rise. This hypothesis is consistent with the "universalism" idea advanced in political science, where government office holders attempt to reward all office holders through their particular constituencies. A second hypothesis is that the degree of representation may affect government budgetary choices. This hypothesis is investigated through the theory of "the law of 1/n," which is that as the number of legislators rise (the n), the tax price for any particular targeted public expenditure falls, thus we would expect government spending to rise. (Abstract shortened by UMI.).