Replication Data for: Free-Riders or Competitive Races? Strategic Interaction across the American States on Tobacco Policymaking

This paper contributes to our understanding of policy diffusion in two ways. First, by explicitly focusing on the economic competition mechanism of diffusion, I consider how policy externalities contribute to free-rider dynamics or competitive races across the American states. The second contribution is the focus on the interdependence in total legislative activity as well as the influence of successful neighboring legislation on activities in the home state. Using a unique dataset on four different types of tobacco policies that are introduced and eventually enacted in the states from 1990-2010, I find evidence that states engage in free-riding dynamics and that strategic interaction exists in the early stages of agenda-setting. There is also evidence that states respond to legitimate policy threats in neighboring policies. Overall, the results stress the importance of scholars to explore the conditional nature of policy diffusion dynamics by focusing on variations in policy content and stages of the policymaking process other than policy enactment.