John G Matsusaka
Biographic Data
| ID | 1470640 |
|---|---|
| NAME | John G Matsusaka |
| GIVEN NAMES | John G |
| FAMILY NAME | Matsusaka |
| SIGNATURE | MATSUSAKA J G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Southern California |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1525-1764 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 699 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Congruence” and “Responsiveness” in the study of representation
This paper compares two common methods used to measure representation in empirical research: “congruence,” whether a roll-call vote is aligned with constituent opinion; and “responsiveness,” the correlation between roll-call votes and constituent opinion. While sometimes viewed as different ways of capturing the same underlying concept of “representation,” theoretically the measures are not connected. This paper assesses to what extent responsive…
The Democratic Institutions of the Roman Republic
The ancient Roman Republic was the longest-lived popularly governed state in human history yet is understudied in democracy research. This essay provides a systematic overview of the Republic’s political institutions and practices, assembling recent historical evidence in a form accessible to democracy scholars. I argue that, by the criteria used to classify classical Athens and the United States as democracies, the Roman Republic was also a demo…
When Do Legislators Represent Their Constituents? Evidence from Roll-Call and Referendum Votes
This article develops a measure of representation that uses referendum returns to capture constituent opinion and applies it to 4,192 roll-call votes on 33 laws in 10 states. Roll-call votes were congruent with majority/median opinion in a district 66% of the time. Roll-call votes can be explained primarily by legislator ideology, with constituent opinion of secondary importance. The data do not show a reliable connection between congruence and c…
Let the People Rule: How Direct Democracy Can Meet the Populist Challenge
Let the People Rule: How Direct Democracy Can Meet the Populist Challenge
Public policy and the initiative and referendum: A survey with some new evidence
Ballot order effects in direct democracy elections
Disentangling the direct and indirect effects of the initiative process
Popular Control of Public Policy: A Quantitative Approach
The quality of government is often measured by the degree of congruence between policy choices and public opinion, but there is not an accepted method for calculating congruence. This paper offers a new approach to measuring policy-opinion congruence, and uses it to study 10 high-profile issues across the 50 states. For the issues examined, states chose the policy preferred by a majority of citizens (equivalent to the median voter outcome) 59 per…
The economic approach to democracy
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.Winston Churchill
From families to formal contracts: An approach to development
The Coming Age of Direct Democracy: California's Recall and Beyond by Mark Baldassare and Cheryl Katz
For the Many or the Few: The Initiative, Public Policy, and American Democracy (American Politics and Political Economy Series)
Public choice principles of redistricting
The eclipse of legislatures: Direct democracy in the 21st century
The eclipse of legislatures: Direct democracy in the 21st century
Direct Democracy and Fiscal Gridlock: Have Voter Initiatives Paralyzed the California Budget
Does direct democracy make it impossible to balance public sector budgets? I address this question with evidence from California, where it is widely believed that voter initiatives have paralyzed the state budget process by locking in high spending while simultaneously prohibiting tax increases. A review of all initiatives approved since 1912 shows that no more than 32 percent of appropriations in the 2003-04 California state budget were locked i…
The Endogeneity of the Initiative: A Comment on Marschall and Ruhil
It is widely believed that direct democracy, in the form of the initiative, brought about cuts in state taxes and spending over the last quarter century. This belief is based on firsthand observation, case studies, and more than a dozen statistical studies (Matsusaka 2004). Marschall and Ruhil (2005) focus on one of the central issues in this literature: Did the initiative cause this perceived reduction in taxes and spending, or was there some un…
Direct Democracy Works
The purpose of this essay is to describe the practice and theory of the increasingly important political phenomenon of direct democracy and the main lessons from the scholarly literature. Many questions remain to be answered, but the emerging view is that direct democracy works--allowing the general public to participate in lawmaking often seems to improve the performance of government
For the Many or the Few: The Initiative, Public Policy, and American Democracy
Direct democracy is alive and well in the United States. Citizens are increasingly using initiatives and referendums to take the law into their own hands, overriding their elected officials to set tax, expenditure, and social policies. John G. Matsusaka's For the Many or the Few provides the first even-handed and historically based treatment of the subject. Drawing upon a century of evidence, Matsusaka argues against the popular belief that initi…
Direct Democracy: New Approaches to Old Questions
Until recently, direct democracy scholarship was primarily descriptive or normative. Much of it sought to highlight the processes' shortcomings. We describe new research that examines direct democracy from a more scientific perspective. We organize the discussion around four “old” questions that have long been at the heart of the direct democracy debate: Are voters competent? What role does money play? How does direct democracy affect policy? Doe…
Budget referendums and government spending: Evidence from Swiss cantons
Political Resource Allocation: Benefits and Costs of Voter Initiatives
This article explores the benefits and costs of the voter initiative, a direct democracy device that allows policy decisions to be made by voters rather than their elected representatives. Previous research suggests that by introducing “competition” into the proposal process, the initiative leads to policies that are closer to the median voter's ideal point. In our model, in contrast, the effect of the initiative is conditional on the severity of…
Fiscal Policy, Legislature Size, and Political Parties: Evidence from State and Local Governments in the First Half of the 20th Century
This paper tests whether state and local fiscal policy depended on the number of seats in the legislature in the first half of the 20th century. We find that large legislatures spent more, as implied by the "Law of 1/n" from the fiscal commons/logrolling literature. The same relation appears in the latter half of the century, and therefore seems to be systematic. We also find—again consistent with postwar evidence—that only the size of the upper …
Problems with a Methodology Used to Evaluate the Voter Initiative
This note identifies problems with a methodology that has been used to test whether policy is more or less responsive to public opinion in states with voter initiatives. The methodology is to regress a policy variable on a measure of constituent preferences, and compare the coefficients for states with and without voter initiatives. The states with the largest coefficients are said to be more responsive to public opinion. Such an inference is sho…
Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last 30 Years
This paper compares the fiscal behavior of states with and without the voter initiative over the last thirty years. The main finding is that total spending was significantly lower in initiative states than in noninitiative states. Local spending was higher and state spending was lower in initiative states. On the revenue side, initiative states relied less on broad-based taxes and more on charges tied to services. Taken together, the evidence ind…
Direct Democracy: New Approaches to Old Questions
Until recently, direct democracy scholarship was primarily descriptive or normative. Much of it sought to highlight the processes' shortcomings. We describe new research that examines direct democracy from a more scientific perspective. We organize the discussion around four “old” questions that have long been at the heart of the direct democracy debate: Are voters competent? What role does money play? How does direct democracy affect policy? Doe…
Direct Democracy Works
The purpose of this essay is to describe the practice and theory of the increasingly important political phenomenon of direct democracy and the main lessons from the scholarly literature. Many questions remain to be answered, but the emerging view is that direct democracy works--allowing the general public to participate in lawmaking often seems to improve the performance of government
Problems with a Methodology Used to Evaluate the Voter Initiative
This note identifies problems with a methodology that has been used to test whether policy is more or less responsive to public opinion in states with voter initiatives. The methodology is to regress a policy variable on a measure of constituent preferences, and compare the coefficients for states with and without voter initiatives. The states with the largest coefficients are said to be more responsive to public opinion. Such an inference is sho…
Popular Control of Public Policy: A Quantitative Approach
The quality of government is often measured by the degree of congruence between policy choices and public opinion, but there is not an accepted method for calculating congruence. This paper offers a new approach to measuring policy-opinion congruence, and uses it to study 10 high-profile issues across the 50 states. For the issues examined, states chose the policy preferred by a majority of citizens (equivalent to the median voter outcome) 59 per…
The Downsian voter meets the ecological fallacy
Voter turnout: How much can we explain
Explaining voter turnout patterns: An information theory
Election closeness and voter turnout: Evidence from California ballot propositions
The eclipse of legislatures: Direct democracy in the 21st century
Public policy and the initiative and referendum: A survey with some new evidence
Disentangling the direct and indirect effects of the initiative process
Public choice principles of redistricting
Direct Democracy and Fiscal Gridlock: Have Voter Initiatives Paralyzed the California Budget
Does direct democracy make it impossible to balance public sector budgets? I address this question with evidence from California, where it is widely believed that voter initiatives have paralyzed the state budget process by locking in high spending while simultaneously prohibiting tax increases. A review of all initiatives approved since 1912 shows that no more than 32 percent of appropriations in the 2003-04 California state budget were locked i…
The Endogeneity of the Initiative: A Comment on Marschall and Ruhil
It is widely believed that direct democracy, in the form of the initiative, brought about cuts in state taxes and spending over the last quarter century. This belief is based on firsthand observation, case studies, and more than a dozen statistical studies (Matsusaka 2004). Marschall and Ruhil (2005) focus on one of the central issues in this literature: Did the initiative cause this perceived reduction in taxes and spending, or was there some un…
Ballot order effects in direct democracy elections
Structural constraints on partisan bias under the efficient gerrymander
From families to formal contracts: An approach to development
When Do Legislators Represent Their Constituents? Evidence from Roll-Call and Referendum Votes
This article develops a measure of representation that uses referendum returns to capture constituent opinion and applies it to 4,192 roll-call votes on 33 laws in 10 states. Roll-call votes were congruent with majority/median opinion in a district 66% of the time. Roll-call votes can be explained primarily by legislator ideology, with constituent opinion of secondary importance. The data do not show a reliable connection between congruence and c…
Elisabeth R. Gerber, The populist paradox: Interest group influence and the promise of direct legislation
The Downsian voter meets the ecological fallacy
Election closeness and voter turnout: Evidence from California ballot propositions
Deviations From Constituent Interests: The Role of Legislative Structure and Political Parties in the States
This paper investigates the determinants of state spending over 1960—1990. Recent empirical studies suggest that state government expenditure is greater than the electorate desires. Our main finding is that expenditure was positively related to the number of seats in a state's legislature. This is consistent with the hypothesis that logrolling leads representatives to spend more than their constituents would like. We also find that political part…
Explaining voter turnout patterns: An information theory
Fiscal Effects of the Voter Initiative: Evidence from the Last 30 Years
This paper compares the fiscal behavior of states with and without the voter initiative over the last thirty years. The main finding is that total spending was significantly lower in initiative states than in noninitiative states. Local spending was higher and state spending was lower in initiative states. On the revenue side, initiative states relied less on broad-based taxes and more on charges tied to services. Taken together, the evidence ind…
Demand for Environmental Goods: Evidence from Voting Patterns on California Initiatives
This article studies voting behavior on 16 environmental ballot propositions in California in order to characterize the demand for environmental goods. The environment is found to be a normal good for people with mean incomes, but some environmental goods are inferior for those with high incomes, at least when supplied collectively. An important “price” of environmental goods is reduced income in the construction, farming, forestry, and manufactu…
Voter turnout: How much can we explain
Structural constraints on partisan bias under the efficient gerrymander
Elisabeth R. Gerber, The populist paradox: Interest group influence and the promise of direct legislation
Political Resource Allocation: Benefits and Costs of Voter Initiatives
This article explores the benefits and costs of the voter initiative, a direct democracy device that allows policy decisions to be made by voters rather than their elected representatives. Previous research suggests that by introducing “competition” into the proposal process, the initiative leads to policies that are closer to the median voter's ideal point. In our model, in contrast, the effect of the initiative is conditional on the severity of…
Fiscal Policy, Legislature Size, and Political Parties: Evidence from State and Local Governments in the First Half of the 20th Century
This paper tests whether state and local fiscal policy depended on the number of seats in the legislature in the first half of the 20th century. We find that large legislatures spent more, as implied by the "Law of 1/n" from the fiscal commons/logrolling literature. The same relation appears in the latter half of the century, and therefore seems to be systematic. We also find—again consistent with postwar evidence—that only the size of the upper …
Problems with a Methodology Used to Evaluate the Voter Initiative
This note identifies problems with a methodology that has been used to test whether policy is more or less responsive to public opinion in states with voter initiatives. The methodology is to regress a policy variable on a measure of constituent preferences, and compare the coefficients for states with and without voter initiatives. The states with the largest coefficients are said to be more responsive to public opinion. Such an inference is sho…
Budget referendums and government spending: Evidence from Swiss cantons
For the Many or the Few: The Initiative, Public Policy, and American Democracy
Direct democracy is alive and well in the United States. Citizens are increasingly using initiatives and referendums to take the law into their own hands, overriding their elected officials to set tax, expenditure, and social policies. John G. Matsusaka's For the Many or the Few provides the first even-handed and historically based treatment of the subject. Drawing upon a century of evidence, Matsusaka argues against the popular belief that initi…
Direct Democracy: New Approaches to Old Questions
Until recently, direct democracy scholarship was primarily descriptive or normative. Much of it sought to highlight the processes' shortcomings. We describe new research that examines direct democracy from a more scientific perspective. We organize the discussion around four “old” questions that have long been at the heart of the direct democracy debate: Are voters competent? What role does money play? How does direct democracy affect policy? Doe…
The eclipse of legislatures: Direct democracy in the 21st century
The eclipse of legislatures: Direct democracy in the 21st century
Direct Democracy and Fiscal Gridlock: Have Voter Initiatives Paralyzed the California Budget
Does direct democracy make it impossible to balance public sector budgets? I address this question with evidence from California, where it is widely believed that voter initiatives have paralyzed the state budget process by locking in high spending while simultaneously prohibiting tax increases. A review of all initiatives approved since 1912 shows that no more than 32 percent of appropriations in the 2003-04 California state budget were locked i…
The Endogeneity of the Initiative: A Comment on Marschall and Ruhil
It is widely believed that direct democracy, in the form of the initiative, brought about cuts in state taxes and spending over the last quarter century. This belief is based on firsthand observation, case studies, and more than a dozen statistical studies (Matsusaka 2004). Marschall and Ruhil (2005) focus on one of the central issues in this literature: Did the initiative cause this perceived reduction in taxes and spending, or was there some un…
Direct Democracy Works
The purpose of this essay is to describe the practice and theory of the increasingly important political phenomenon of direct democracy and the main lessons from the scholarly literature. Many questions remain to be answered, but the emerging view is that direct democracy works--allowing the general public to participate in lawmaking often seems to improve the performance of government
Public choice principles of redistricting
From families to formal contracts: An approach to development
The Coming Age of Direct Democracy: California's Recall and Beyond by Mark Baldassare and Cheryl Katz
For the Many or the Few: The Initiative, Public Policy, and American Democracy (American Politics and Political Economy Series)
The economic approach to democracy
Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.Winston Churchill
Political science (30 works) · Politics (25 works) · Economics (23 works) · Law (23 works) · Electoral Systems and Political Participation (22 works) · Democracy (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Public economics (14 works) · Public Administration (13 works) · Public finance (12 works)