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Description
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Abstract Governments shape policy outcomes using two distinct sources of public policymaking: rules and discretion. A simple decomposition strategy is proposed for distinguishing between rule-based (tax and expenditure limitations: TELs) and discretionary (partisan governments) policymaking effects on income inequality in the American states from 1986-2020. Because this analytical strategy is premised on the joint rule-discretionary policymaking context, it is easily applicable to other empirical settings. The statistical evidence, for the most part, that income inequality observed in the American states is generally unaffected by both TELs and partisan control of state governments ─ the lone exception being unified Republican state governments operating under a TEL. The decomposition evidence, however, shows that this is primarily the result of discretionary policymaking differences among partisan governments, and not attributable to the effect of TELs. This study underscores the importance of disentangling policy mechanisms that jointly occur when evaluating the consequences of government policymaking authority. (2024-12-11)
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Notes
| This is the data replication file materials employed for both this article and corresponding online appendix. It includes a Variable Codebook, EXCEL spreadsheet containing the raw data, plus various Stata database (*.dta) files and corresponding program, output, and graphic files needed to reproduce the analyses contained in these documents. |
