Person:
Becher, Michael

Profile Picture
Email Address
Birth Date
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Job Title
First Name
Michael
Last Name
Becher
Affiliation
IE University
School
IE School of Politics, Economics & Global Affairs
Department
International Relations
Identifiers
Name

Filters

2018 - 20192
Reset filters

Settings

Author: Stegmueller, Daniel × End date: 2019 ×

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Cognitive Ability, Union Membership, and Voter Turnout
    (2019) Stegmueller, Daniel; Becher, Michael; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75
    Labor unions are said to in uence elections and public policy by increasing their members’ electoral turnout. But existing research likely overestimates the turnout effect of union membership by ignoring sorting in the labor market. In the presence of a union wage premium, both membership and turnout are shaped by the same (unobserved) factors, such as cognitive ability. To disentangle the union effect from positive selection, we use unique data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. It allows us to specify a latent factor potential outcome model with matching on both observable and unobservable individual characteristics. We find that about one-third of the observed union turnout effect is due to selection, more than what previous studies suggest.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Publication
    Local Union Organization and Law Making in the US Congress
    (The University of Chicago Press, 2018-04) Becher, Michael; Stegmueller, Daniel; Käppner, Konstantin; https://ror.org/02jjdwm75
    The political power of labor unions is a contentious issue in the social sciences. Departing from the dominant focus on membership size, we argue that unions’ influence on national law making is based to an important degree on their local organization. We delineate the novel hypothesis that the horizontal concentration of union members within electoral districts matters. To test it, we draw on administrative records and map the membership size and concentration of local unions to districts of the US House of Representatives, 2003–12. We find that, controlling for membership size, representatives from districts with less concentrated unions have more liberal voting records than their peers. This concentration effect survives numerous district controls and relaxing OLS assumptions. While surprising for several theoretical perspectives, it is consistent with theories based on social incentives. These results have implications for our broader understanding of political representation and the role of groups in democratic politics.