Kati Suominen Inter-American Development Bank Proportional representation systems affect the extent to which elected legislators exhibit various attributes that allow them to earn a personal vote. The sources of variation in personal vote-earning attributes (PVEA) lie in informational shortcuts voters use under different electoral rules. List type (closed or open) and district magnitude (the number of legislators elected from a district) affect the types of shortcuts voters employ. When lists are closed, legislators' PVEA are of decreasing usefulness to voters as magnitude (and hence the number of candidates on a list) increases. When lists are open, legislators' PVEA are increasingly useful to voters as magnitude increases, because the number of candidates from which voters must choose whom to give a preference vote increases. As predicted by the theory, the probability that a legislator will exhibit PVEAoperationalized as local birthplace or lower-level electoral experience-declines with magnitude when lists are closed, but rises with magnitude when lists are open.

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Boost to Open Regionalism i. Problems with a Multiregime RoO World ii. Counteracting the Splintering of the RoO Panorama: Possibilities and Prospects VI. Conclusion RoO can thus be used to meet the political economy goal of extending protection to both intra-PTA input and final goods producers. In an en econometric study of the determinants of the restrictiveness of the RoO in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), Estevadeordal (2000) shows that the same political economy factors that drive tariff protection also drive RoO. Sanguinetti and Bianchi (2004) finds similar evidence in the RoO of the Southern Common Market (Mercosur), as does Suominen (2004), even after controlling for industry fixed effects, in the European Union-Mexico FTA while. 3 Furthermore, given that RoO hold the potential of increasing local sourcing and affecting the locational decisions of investors, 4 governments can use RoO to encourage investment in certain strategic or high-value sectors-for instance in order to create lucrative jobs (Jensen-Moran 1996; Hirsch 2002).