Replication data for: Black Politicians Are More Intrinsically Motivated To Advance Blacks’ Interests: A Field Experiment Manipulating Political Incentives

Do politicians work to advance the interests of those of their race even when they expect little political reward for doing so? I use a field experiment to examine how politicians change their behavior toward a black individual when their political incentives are reduced. Guided by elite interviews, I emailed 6,928 US state legislators from a putatively black alias asking for help signing up for state unemployment benefits. Crucially, I varied legislators’ degree of political incentive to respond by randomizing whether the sender purported to live within or far from each legislator’s district. While non-black legislators were markedly less likely to respond when their political incentives to do so were diminished, black legislators typically continued to respond even when they had little political reason for doing so. Black legislators thus appear substantially more intrinsically motivated to advance blacks’ interests than are other legislators. Implications for political representation are discussed.