Political Analysis Advance Access originally published online on November 20, 2008
Political Analysis 2009 17(1):1-24; doi:10.1093/pan/mpn009
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A New Measure of Policy Spending Priorities in the American States
Department of Political Science, Michigan State University, 303 South Kedzie Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824
e-mail: jacoby{at}msu.edu (corresponding author)
In this paper, we develop and test a general measure of policy expenditures in the American states. Our approach is to construct a spatial proximity model of yearly state program spending. The empirical analysis reveals that state spending patterns vary along a clear and readily-interpretable unidimensional continuum which differentiates policies that provide particularized benefits to needy constituencies from policies that provide broader collective goods. Based upon standard evaluative criteria, the variable created from our model possesses some highly desirable characteristics. And, it compares favorably to other measures of state policy activity. The net result is a yearly score for each state which summarizes that state's spending across all major program areas. More generally, we believe that our variable can be interpreted as valid and reliable representational measurement of state policy priorities. In this capacity, it could occupy an important position within models of state politics.
Author's note: Many colleagues provided useful feedback on earlier versions of this paper. We particularly appreciate the excellent comments and suggestions from Robert Erikson, Richard Fording, Kim Hill, David Lowery, Andrea McAtee, and George Rabinowitz. We would also like to thank Daniel Lewis and William Myers for their assistance with the data collection. The yearly state policy priority scores obtained from the unfolding analysis, along with the data used to create the scores, the SAS macro to carry out the unfolding procedure, and all other supplemental materials are available on the authors’ web sites: http://polisci.msu.edu/jacoby and http://polisci.msu.edu/schneider. All these materials are also available on the Political Analysis Web site.