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Panel data are a very valuable resource for finding empirical solutions to political science puzzles. Yet numerous published studies in political science that use panel data to estimate models with dynamics have failed to take into account important estimation issues, which calls into question the inferences we can make from these analyses. The failure to account explicitly for unobserved individual effects in dynamic panel data induces bias and inconsistency in cross-sectional estimators. The purpose of this paper is to review dynamic panel data estimators that eliminate these problems. I first show how the problems with cross-sectional estimators arise in dynamic models for panel data. I then show how to correct for these problems using generalized method of moments estimators. Finally, I demonstrate the usefulness of these methods with replications of analyses in the debate over the dynamics of party identification.

Despite numerous analyses of the relationship between campaign contributions & the roll-call voting behavior of members of Congress, we still lack definitive answers to long-standing questions about whether contributions affect votes. Part of the reason for this is that it is methodologically difficult to account for members' predispositions to vote in favor of PACs' interests. This article seeks to advance our understanding of the relationship between campaign contributions & voting behavior by using a method for panel data that overcomes the problem of accounting for voting predispositions. This method enables us to account for individual specific effects, such as the predisposition to vote for or against a particular piece of legislation, which are too costly or impossible to measure. Applying this method, I find that contributions do not have consistent effects that would indicate that PACs are significantly biasing congressional decision making in their favor. 6 Tables, 4 Figures, 40 References. Adapted from the source document.

When members are elected to the House of Representatives they have a certain freedom to decide how they will act as members and how they will build their reputations. Just as in the market place entrepreneurs build businesses, so in the House of Representatives members have the freedom to choose to build legislative programs that will enhance their reputations in the institution. And yet entrepreneurship is also costly to members. Gregory Wawro explains why members of the House engage in legislative entrepreneurship by examining what motivates them to acquire policy knowledge, draft legislation, build coalitions, and push their legislation in the House. He considers what incentives members have to perform what many have perceived to be the difficult and unrewarding tasks of legislating. This book shows how becoming a legislative entrepreneur relates to members' goals of reelection, enacting good public policy, and obtaining influence in the House. The analysis differs from previous studies of this behavior, which for the most part have employed case study methods and have relied on anecdotal evidence to support their arguments. Wawro analyzes legislative entrepreneurship in a general and systematic fashion, developing hypotheses from rational-choice-based theories and testing these hypotheses using quantitative methods. Wawro argues that members engage in legislative entrepreneurship in order to get ahead within the House. He finds that the more legislative entrepreneurship that members engage in, the more likely it is that they will advance to prestigious positions. This book is of interest to students of Congress, legislative behavior and institutions, elections, and campaign finance. Gregory Wawro is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Columbia University

Rationalization is the adjustment of one's beliefs about politically relevant information, the better to fit one's political behavior or one's political attitudes. This reverses the usual causal order, in which it is assumed that people start with values, add what little factual information they have, & produce policy, partisan, or ideological "attitudes" as a result. If people actually work backwards from their political behavior to their attitudes, & from their attitudes to their beliefs about "the facts," there are obvious & troubling implications for democratic legitimacy, as well as for the academic study of democratic competence. I confine myself here to exploring some of the empirical evidence for rationalization, & to thinking about how to solve the resulting research problems, bracketing the normative issues. Figures. Adapted from the source document.