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Traditional accounts of policy-making emphasize how partisanship and ideology affect policy choice and government spending decisions. However, less is known for the case of issues where the distribution of policy positions do not fall clearly on the left-right political spectrum. In such cases, we argue that partisanship matters, but that its effects are influenced by polarization and by prevailing economic conditions. Using data on state higher education budget share and spending from 1976 - 2002, we find that polarization amplifies partisan divides. An additional state Democratic legislator in times of low polarization does not have much impact on budget share or spending but has a large effect in times of high polarization. Moreover, we find that prevailing economic conditions also influence how partisanship matters: in times of low unemployment, an additional state Democratic legislator increases higher education spending by much more than in times of high unemployment. These findings support the argument that scholars should consider the impact of polarization when analyzing partisan effects, even in policy areas where there is less disagreement about the need for government spending. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How will increased economic openness affect the welfare state? Standard economic theory predicts that globalization constrains a government's ability to use counter-cyclical fiscal policy instruments and to tax and spend generally. Rodrick's seminal paper, in contrast, argues that governments spend more to compensate citizens for the increased risk brought about by openness. To Rodrik, citizen income derived from government spending, though lower on average, is less volatile overall. He presents cross-national evidence on international trade flows and spending to buttress this claim. I replicate this argument, but I find that Rodrik's results are sensitive to how he treats missing values. If, instead of averaging out missingness, missing values are omitted or multiply-imputed, the coefficient estimates of interest are sharply attenuated and no longer significant. I argue that scholars must pay close attention to missing data to avoid biased results. Additionally, I extend the analysis. Using an updated data source, I find that increased trade flows are not associated with increased government spending - no matter how missingness is treated. Statutory trade openness does, however, have some positive effect on government spending. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between international capital mobility and domestic policies. I ask whether capital mobility straightforwardly leads all governments to compete and offer more business-friendly policies, or whether countries that are initially unattractive to investors might act differently. An unattractive country might offer more generous incentives to business in order to compensate for their weaknesses, or they might find their disadvantage overwhelming and give up, offering fewer business-friendly policies. I test three hypotheses on this relationship, using two measures of policy outcomes. I find robust and significant evidence that the more-attractive countries compete while the less-attractive countries stagnate. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]