Working Papers by R. Michael Alvarez

This paper examines the relationship between attitudes on potential uses of the budget surplus and gender. Survey results show relatively weak support overall for using a projected surplus to reduce taxes, with respondents much likelier to prefer increased social spending on education or social security. There is a significant gender gap with men being far more likely than women to support tax cuts or paying down the national debt. Given a menu of particular types of tax cuts, women are marginally more likely to favor child care relief or working poor tax credits whereas men are marginally more likely to favor capital gains reduction or tax rate cuts. When primed that the tax laws are biased against two-worker families, men significantly change their preferences, moving from support for general tax rate cuts to support for working poor tax relief, but not to child-care relief. One of the strongest results to emerge is that women are far more likely than men not to express an opinion or to confess ignorance about fiscal matters. Both genders increase their "opinion" answer in the face of priming, but men more so than women. Further research will explore this no opinion/uncertainty aspect.

Theory: We present a model of voter campaign learning which is based on Bayesian learning models. This model assumes voters are imperfectly informed and that they incorporate new information into their existing perceptions about candidate issue positions in a systematic manner. Hypothesis: Additional information made available to voters about candidate issue positions during the course of a political campaign will lead voters to have more precise perceptions of the issue positions of the candidates involved. Data and Methods: We use panel survey data from the 1976 and 1980 presidential elections, combined with content analyses of the media during these same elections. Our primary analysis is conducted using random effects panel models. Results: We find that during each of these campaigns many voters became better informed about the positions of candidates on many issues and that these changes in voter information are directly related to the information ow during each presidential campaign.

Theory: We argue that support among California voters for Proposition 187 in 1994 was an example of cyclical nativism. This nativism was provoked primarily by California's economic downturn during the early 1990s. Hypotheses: We develop four specific hypotheses to explain how poor economic conditions in California and the consequent nativistic sentiments would result in support for Proposition 187: 1. voters who believe that California's economic condition is poor will be more likely to support Proposition 187; 2. voters who perceive themselves as being economically threatened by illegal immigrants will be more likely to support Proposition 187; 3. voters with lower levels of education are more economically vulnerable and will be more likely to support Proposition 187; 4. voters in Southern California feel more directly affected by illegal immigration and will be more likely to support Proposition 187. Methods: To test these hypotheses, we analyze voter exit poll data from the 1994 California election. We utilize a two-stage probit model to allow for the endogeneity which results from the politicization of illegal immigration during this election. Results: We find support for our hypotheses in the data. These findings cause us to conclude that nativism, fueled by economic conditions, was a salient factor leading many Californians to support Proposition 187.