A political economic analysis of Congressional voting on permanent normal trade relations of China

Abstract

The paper provides an empirical examination of the determinants of support for Permanent Normal Trade Relations Status (PNTR) for China in the United States Congress. A logistic regression model and control is estimated for both economic and political influences. It is found that business political action committee (PAC) contributions to lawmakers and the skill level of the constituency had a significant positive influence on lawmakers' voting in favour of PNTR. Political affiliation, import-competing industries in the constituency, labour PAC contributions, and lawmakers' political ideology had a significant negative influence on the PNTR vote.

Net campaign contributions, agricultural interests, and votes on liberalizing trade with China

“…However, employment in the textile industry has a negative but not statistically significant impact on the probability of a 'yes' vote in our model. Hasnat and Callahan (2002), by contrast, find that employment in textiles significantly reduced the likelihood of voting for PNTR. Similarly, we do not find evidence that the vote was significantly influenced by the overall industrial structure of the congressional districts.…”

“…23 A high dependence on exports to China did not have a significant impact on voting in favor of PNTR, although the sign is as expected. Hasnat and Callahan (2002), with a single equation model, also do not find a significant export effect.…”

“…If they are assumed to be drawn independently from a normal distribution, we have the probit model which, along with the closely related logit model, has been widely used in empirical analysis of voting behavior (see Hasnat and Callahan 2002;Fisher et al 2005). If interest is in the vote alone, we could estimate the voting relationship directly.…”

“…This is one of the more controversial trade votes of recent years, but it has not been widely studied, the main exceptions being single equation models developed by Hasnat and Callahan (2002) and Malet (2007). The agricultural/agribusiness lobby played a prominent role in this bill.…”

“…Whether or not these measures should be included in the vote equation doesn't seem to be settled in the literature Chappell (1982),Box-Steffensmeier et al (1997),Hasnat and Callahan (2002). andFisher et al (2005) do not include them, whereas Magee (2000a, 2000b) andAbetti (2008) do.…”