The Not-So-Popular Branch: Bicameralism as a Counter-Majoritarian Device

Abstract

We estimate a model of voting in Congress that allows for dispersed information about the quality of proposals in an equilibrium context. The results highlight the effects of bicameralism on policy outcomes. In equilibrium, the Senate imposes an endogenous supermajority rule on members of the House. We estimate this supermajority rule to be about four-fifths on average across policy areas. Moreover, our results indicate that the value of the information dispersed among legislators is significant, and that in equilibrium a large fraction of House members (40-50%) vote in accordance with their private information. Taken together, our results imply a highly conservative Senate, in the sense that proposals are enacted into law only when it is extremely likely that their quality is high.

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