Replication Data for Legislative Reciprocity: Using a Proposal Lottery to Identify Causal Effects

Although much has been written on legislative reciprocity, rarely have scholars had an opportunity to leverage a randomly-assigned asset to assess whether and how legislators reciprocate when their colleagues assist them. Using the lottery that allows Canadian Members of Parliament (MPs) to propose bills or motions, we examine whether MPs' priority numbers affect their proclivity to second motions made by other MPs, which would be expected if MPs sought to build support for their own proposals by supporting proposals by others. Although MPs almost always make a proposal if their priority number allows them to do so, we find a weak relationship between MPs' priority numbers and their probability of seconding others' proposals. Moreover, when we look at successive parliaments, we see only faint indications that those who, by chance, won the right to propose in the previous session (and who therefore were eligible to attract seconds) are more likely to second others' proposals in the current session. Although subject to a fair amount of statistical uncertainty that will gradually dissipate as future parliaments are examined, this pattern of evidence currently suggests that correlated seconding behavior among legislators is more the product of homophily than reciprocity.尽管学界已就立法互惠（legislative reciprocity）开展了大量研究，但学者们极少有机会借助一项随机分配的资源，来评估议员在同僚协助自身时是否会、以及会如何进行互惠回报。本研究依托加拿大国会议员（Members of Parliament，简称MPs）提出法案或动议的摇号机制，考察议员的优先编号是否会影响其附议其他议员动议的倾向——若议员试图通过支持他人提案来为自身提案争取支持，那么该关联便符合预期。尽管只要优先编号允许，议员几乎都会提出自身提案，但研究发现，议员的优先编号与其附议他人提案的概率之间仅存在微弱关联。此外，在对连续届次议会的考察中，我们仅能找到微弱证据表明，那些在上一届议会中偶然获得提案权（因此有资格获得他人附议）的议员，在本届议会中更有可能附议他人的提案。尽管本研究受限于一定的统计不确定性，这一问题将随着未来对更多届次议会的考察而逐步得到解决，但目前的证据模式表明，议员之间的附议行为相关性，更多是同质性偏好（homophily）的产物，而非立法互惠的结果。