How Do Senators Vote? Disentangling the Role of Voter Preferences, Party Affiliation, and Senate Ideology
提出一种方法，在参议员意识形态不可观测的情况下，一致估计其效用函数中各因素的相对权重。实证发现选民偏好权重仅占四分之一，参议员自身意识形态是投票的主要决定因素，对中位选民定理构成挑战。
This paper develops a methodology for consistently estimating the relative weights in senator utility functions, despite the fact that senator ideologies are unobserved. The empirical results suggest that voter preferences are assigned only one quarter of the weight in senator utility functions. The national 'party line' also has some influence but the senator's own ideology is the primary determinant of roll-call voting patterns. These results cast doubt on the empirical relevance of the median voter theorem. Estimation of the model requires only roll-call voting data, making it widely applicable. Copyright 1996 by American Economic Association.