Working paper
A political disconnect? Evidence from voting on trade agreements
- Abstract:
- We study votes of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on the approval of free trade agreements (FTAs). Against widespread Eurosceptic arguments, we find that MEPs are responsive to the interests of their electorate and their re-election chances increase with the extent to which their votes on trade agreements are aligned with their constituents’ interests. By contrast, US legislators’ votes on FTAs are disconnected from their electorate’s interests and do not impact their re-election chances. Our results suggest that legislators’ accountability on a policy issue may depend on its salience relative to other policies in the legislators’ sphere of competence.
- Publication status:
- Published
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Authors
+ European Research Council
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- Funder identifier:
- https://ror.org/0472cxd90
- Funding agency for:
- Conconi, C
- Grant:
- 834253
- Publisher:
- University of Oxford
- Series:
- Department of Economics Discussion Paper Series
- Place of publication:
- Oxford
- Publication date:
- 2026-01-13
- Paper number:
- 1106
- Language:
-
English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
-
2362105
- UUID:
-
uuid_53bcee9c-1769-4330-a621-54cf1f0a95de
- Local pid:
-
pubs:2362105
- Deposit date:
-
2026-01-19
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Conconi et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2026
- Rights statement:
- © 2026 The Author(s).
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