Dean Lacy | Dartmouth College (original) (raw)

Papers by Dean Lacy

American Journal of Political Science, Apr 1, 2001

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access... more The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact

Public Opinion Quarterly, Oct 30, 2021

Although racial identity is usually assumed to be unchanging, recent research shows otherwise. Th... more Although racial identity is usually assumed to be unchanging, recent research shows otherwise. The role of politics in racial identity change has received little attention. Using panel data with waves around two recent presidential elections, this article reveals survey evidence of racial fluidity and its strong relationship with vote switching patterns. Across several models and robust to various controls, switching from a non-Republican vote in 2012 to a 2016 Republican vote (i.e., non-Romney to Trump) significantly predicts nonwhite to white race change. Among nonwhites who did not vote Republican in 2012, switching to a Republican vote in 2016 increases the probability of adopting a white racial identity from a 0.03 baseline to 0.49, a 1,533 percent increase. Individuals originally identifying as Mixed and Hispanic drive this identity-voting link. A parallel dynamic on the Democratic side—new Democratic voters moving from white to nonwhite identities—does not occur. The systematic relationship between Trump switching and white identity adoption is unlikely to be spurious or due to measurement error, does not appear for the 2008–2012 election period, and makes theoretical sense in light of 2016 campaign rhetoric and trends in political-social identity alignment.

Journal of East Asian Studies, Apr 1, 2012

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 1998

This paper derives electoral equilibria when voters have nonseparable preferences for candidates ... more This paper derives electoral equilibria when voters have nonseparable preferences for candidates in double-member districts. When candidates are elected simultaneously, nonseparable voter preferences create multiple equilibria, including some in which candidates adopt extreme positions. These results are robust to limited voter uncertainty about candidate interaction in the legislature. Nonseparable voter preferences create incentives for the formation of political parties and disincentives for candidates to moderate their positions.

American Politics Quarterly, Jul 1, 1998

The 1980 American presidential election, in which Ronald Reagan pledged to cut federal income tax... more The 1980 American presidential election, in which Ronald Reagan pledged to cut federal income taxes by 30%, provides a case study for the electoral impact of tax cuts and the sources of voter support for tax cuts. Probit estimation of a model of the 1980 Carter-Reagan vote reveals that voter preferences on the tax cut are closely associated with individual vote choice. Nearly as many voters opposed as supported Reagan's tax plan, giving him no net increase in his vote share. Individual preferences on the tax cut are more closely associated with expectations about the economic effects of the cut than with race, income, partisanship, or candidate evaluations. Trust in government is also closely related to preferences on the tax cut. Voter support for the 1980 Reagan tax cut was not part of a broad-based tax revolt; rather, it appealed to voters as a policy prescription for solving other, more important economic problems.

In this chapter we develop a model in which candidates have exogenously fixed positions on a sing... more In this chapter we develop a model in which candidates have exogenously fixed positions on a single issue dimension on which one candidate has an advantage by being closer to the median voter. The disadvantaged candidate can introduce a new issue to win the election. When all voters have separable preferences and the advantaged candidate moves last on the new issue, there is no way for the disadvantaged candidate to win. When some voters have nonseparable preferences over the issues, the disadvantaged can take a position that the advantaged candidate cannot beat. Candidates in an election can benefit from introducing new issues, but only when some voters have nonseparable preferences. Using data from a 2004 survey, we show that a substantial percentage of US voters have nonseparable preferences for many issues of public policy, creating incentives and opportunities for political candidates to package issues.

Political Psychology, Mar 1, 2011

Individuals tend to be very bad at predicting their emotional responses to future events, often o... more Individuals tend to be very bad at predicting their emotional responses to future events, often overestimating both the intensity and duration of their responses, particularly to negative events. The authors studied affective forecasting errors in the 2008 election in a large sample of undergraduates at Dartmouth College. Replicating past research, McCain supporters overpredicted their negative affect in response to the (future) election of Barack Obama. Obama supporters, however, underpredicted their happiness in response to his victory. Results are discussed with reference to mechanisms proposed to underlie the impact bias, as well as the unique circumstances surrounding this historic election season.

Political Behavior, Aug 9, 2016

Voters' four primary evaluations of the economy-retrospective national, retrospective pocketbook,... more Voters' four primary evaluations of the economy-retrospective national, retrospective pocketbook, prospective national, and prospective pocketbook-vary in the cognitive steps necessary to link economic outcomes to candidates in elections. We hypothesize that the effects of the different economic evaluations on vote choice vary with a voter's ability to acquire information and anticipate the election outcome. Using data from the 1980 through 2004 US presidential elections, we estimate a model of vote choice that includes all four economic evaluations as well as information and uncertainty moderators. The effects of retrospective evaluations on vote choice do not vary by voter information. Prospective economic evaluations weigh in the decisions of the most informed voters, who rely on prospective national evaluations when they believe the incumbent party will win and on prospective pocketbook evaluations when they are uncertain about the election outcome or believe that the challenger will win. Voters who have accurate expectations about who will win the election show the strongest relationship between their vote choice and sociotropic evaluations of the economy, both retrospective and prospective.

American Journal of Political Science, Oct 1, 1998

Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System ' k m o n g Republicans who knew that thei... more Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System ' k m o n g Republicans who knew that their party controlled Congress, over 5 1 percent thought that Congress was doing either a fair or poor job, and only 7 percent described the Republican Congress's performance as excellent. I6As in the current study, Sigelman, Wahlbeck, and Buell exclude voters who voted for Ross Perot or a third-party candidate for Congress.

Studies of issue linkage, economic sanctions, and military coercion rarely overlap even though ca... more Studies of issue linkage, economic sanctions, and military coercion rarely overlap even though cases of economic sanctions and military coercion are, by definition, cases of issue linkage. The existing literature on issue linkage and economic sanctions examines only cases where both sides in a dispute have separable preferences for the issues under dispute. This paper expands the current literature by introducing two innovations: states in a dispute may have nonseparable preferences for the issues under dispute, and they may not know the preferences of their opponent. Specifically, we develop a game of economic sanctions in which a player does not know whether its opponent has separable or nonseparable preferences. We derive the conditions under which coercer states will choose to impose sanctions on their opponents, and under which target states will choose to capitulate to or resist the demands of the coercer

Social Science Research Network, 2010

Abstract will be provided by author.

Social Science Research Network, 2009

... "Presidential Campaigns and the Knowledge Gap in Three Transitional Democracies." P... more ... "Presidential Campaigns and the Knowledge Gap in Three Transitional Democracies." Political Research Quarterly 59.1 (2006): 13-22. McGlone, Matthew S., Joshua Arson, and Diane Kobryowicz. ... Muhlberger, Peter, and Lori M. Weber. ...

Social Science Research Network, 2009

ABSTRACT Every year more states receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes to the fe... more ABSTRACT Every year more states receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes to the federal government. Since the early 1980s, when data on tax burdens per state are first available, the states that receive more in federal spending than taxes paid have been increasingly Republican in presidential elections. This pattern persisted in the 2008 presidential election. The impact of federal spending on a state’s Electoral Vote is increasing over the period 1984 to 2008 and remains statistically significant as a predictor of the vote when controlling for differences in ideology and opinions on issues across state populations and when controlling for per capita or median state income.

ABSTRACT Every year more states receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes to the fe... more ABSTRACT Every year more states receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes to the federal government. Since the early 1980s, when data on tax burdens per state are first available, the states that receive more in federal spending than taxes paid have been increasingly Republican in presidential elections. This pattern persisted in the 2008 presidential election. The impact of federal spending on a state’s Electoral Vote is increasing over the period 1984 to 2008 and remains statistically significant as a predictor of the vote when controlling for differences in ideology and opinions on issues across state populations and when controlling for per capita or median state income.

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2000

When some voters have nonseparable preferences across multiple binary issues, majority rule may n... more When some voters have nonseparable preferences across multiple binary issues, majority rule may not select a Condorcet winning set of outcomes when one exists, and the social choice may be a Condorcet loser or Pareto-dominated by every other set of outcomes. We present an empirical example of one such paradox from voting on the Internet. We evaluate potential solutions to the problem of nonseparable preferences in referendums, including set-wise voting, sequential voting, and vote-trading. Sequential voting and vote-trading prevent the selection of Condorcet losers and universally Pareto-dominated outcomes. Legislatures facilitate sequential voting and vote-trading better than referendums, suggesting that referendums increase the quantity of participants in democratic decisionmaking but decrease the quality of participation. KEY WORDS • Condorcet winner • nonseparable preferences • referendums • sequential voting • strategic voting • vote-trading 1. Most dictionaries list both 'referendums' and 'referenda' as acceptable plural forms of 'referendum'. We adopt the convention of the Oxford American Dictionary: 'The Latin word referendum (= referring) has no plural in Latin, so careful writers prefer to use referendums as the plural in English.'

Political Behavior, Dec 22, 2017

Tests of theories of the electoral origins of divided government hinge on the proper measurement ... more Tests of theories of the electoral origins of divided government hinge on the proper measurement of voter preferences for divided government. Deriving preferences for divided government from voters' ideological positions or responses to the standard American National Election Studies question inflates estimates of the proportion of people who prefer divided government. We present two alternative survey measures of preferences for divided government and evaluate the measures across multiple surveys. We find that the percentage of voters who prefer divided government is smaller than previous studies suggest. Voters who prefer divided government according to the new measures are significantly more likely than other Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

A person has nonseparable preferences when her preference on an issue depends on the outcome of o... more A person has nonseparable preferences when her preference on an issue depends on the outcome of other issues. A model of survey responses in which preferences are measured with error implies that responses will change depending on the order of questions and vary over time when respondents have nonseparable preferences. Results from two survey experiments confirmthat changes in survey responses due to question order are explained by nonseparable preferences but not by the respondent's level of political information, partisanship, or ideology.

American Journal of Political Science, Apr 1, 2001

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access... more The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact

Public Opinion Quarterly, Oct 30, 2021

Although racial identity is usually assumed to be unchanging, recent research shows otherwise. Th... more Although racial identity is usually assumed to be unchanging, recent research shows otherwise. The role of politics in racial identity change has received little attention. Using panel data with waves around two recent presidential elections, this article reveals survey evidence of racial fluidity and its strong relationship with vote switching patterns. Across several models and robust to various controls, switching from a non-Republican vote in 2012 to a 2016 Republican vote (i.e., non-Romney to Trump) significantly predicts nonwhite to white race change. Among nonwhites who did not vote Republican in 2012, switching to a Republican vote in 2016 increases the probability of adopting a white racial identity from a 0.03 baseline to 0.49, a 1,533 percent increase. Individuals originally identifying as Mixed and Hispanic drive this identity-voting link. A parallel dynamic on the Democratic side—new Democratic voters moving from white to nonwhite identities—does not occur. The systematic relationship between Trump switching and white identity adoption is unlikely to be spurious or due to measurement error, does not appear for the 2008–2012 election period, and makes theoretical sense in light of 2016 campaign rhetoric and trends in political-social identity alignment.

Journal of East Asian Studies, Apr 1, 2012

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 1998

This paper derives electoral equilibria when voters have nonseparable preferences for candidates ... more This paper derives electoral equilibria when voters have nonseparable preferences for candidates in double-member districts. When candidates are elected simultaneously, nonseparable voter preferences create multiple equilibria, including some in which candidates adopt extreme positions. These results are robust to limited voter uncertainty about candidate interaction in the legislature. Nonseparable voter preferences create incentives for the formation of political parties and disincentives for candidates to moderate their positions.

American Politics Quarterly, Jul 1, 1998

The 1980 American presidential election, in which Ronald Reagan pledged to cut federal income tax... more The 1980 American presidential election, in which Ronald Reagan pledged to cut federal income taxes by 30%, provides a case study for the electoral impact of tax cuts and the sources of voter support for tax cuts. Probit estimation of a model of the 1980 Carter-Reagan vote reveals that voter preferences on the tax cut are closely associated with individual vote choice. Nearly as many voters opposed as supported Reagan's tax plan, giving him no net increase in his vote share. Individual preferences on the tax cut are more closely associated with expectations about the economic effects of the cut than with race, income, partisanship, or candidate evaluations. Trust in government is also closely related to preferences on the tax cut. Voter support for the 1980 Reagan tax cut was not part of a broad-based tax revolt; rather, it appealed to voters as a policy prescription for solving other, more important economic problems.

In this chapter we develop a model in which candidates have exogenously fixed positions on a sing... more In this chapter we develop a model in which candidates have exogenously fixed positions on a single issue dimension on which one candidate has an advantage by being closer to the median voter. The disadvantaged candidate can introduce a new issue to win the election. When all voters have separable preferences and the advantaged candidate moves last on the new issue, there is no way for the disadvantaged candidate to win. When some voters have nonseparable preferences over the issues, the disadvantaged can take a position that the advantaged candidate cannot beat. Candidates in an election can benefit from introducing new issues, but only when some voters have nonseparable preferences. Using data from a 2004 survey, we show that a substantial percentage of US voters have nonseparable preferences for many issues of public policy, creating incentives and opportunities for political candidates to package issues.

Political Psychology, Mar 1, 2011

Individuals tend to be very bad at predicting their emotional responses to future events, often o... more Individuals tend to be very bad at predicting their emotional responses to future events, often overestimating both the intensity and duration of their responses, particularly to negative events. The authors studied affective forecasting errors in the 2008 election in a large sample of undergraduates at Dartmouth College. Replicating past research, McCain supporters overpredicted their negative affect in response to the (future) election of Barack Obama. Obama supporters, however, underpredicted their happiness in response to his victory. Results are discussed with reference to mechanisms proposed to underlie the impact bias, as well as the unique circumstances surrounding this historic election season.

Political Behavior, Aug 9, 2016

Voters' four primary evaluations of the economy-retrospective national, retrospective pocketbook,... more Voters' four primary evaluations of the economy-retrospective national, retrospective pocketbook, prospective national, and prospective pocketbook-vary in the cognitive steps necessary to link economic outcomes to candidates in elections. We hypothesize that the effects of the different economic evaluations on vote choice vary with a voter's ability to acquire information and anticipate the election outcome. Using data from the 1980 through 2004 US presidential elections, we estimate a model of vote choice that includes all four economic evaluations as well as information and uncertainty moderators. The effects of retrospective evaluations on vote choice do not vary by voter information. Prospective economic evaluations weigh in the decisions of the most informed voters, who rely on prospective national evaluations when they believe the incumbent party will win and on prospective pocketbook evaluations when they are uncertain about the election outcome or believe that the challenger will win. Voters who have accurate expectations about who will win the election show the strongest relationship between their vote choice and sociotropic evaluations of the economy, both retrospective and prospective.

American Journal of Political Science, Oct 1, 1998

Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System ' k m o n g Republicans who knew that thei... more Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System ' k m o n g Republicans who knew that their party controlled Congress, over 5 1 percent thought that Congress was doing either a fair or poor job, and only 7 percent described the Republican Congress's performance as excellent. I6As in the current study, Sigelman, Wahlbeck, and Buell exclude voters who voted for Ross Perot or a third-party candidate for Congress.

Studies of issue linkage, economic sanctions, and military coercion rarely overlap even though ca... more Studies of issue linkage, economic sanctions, and military coercion rarely overlap even though cases of economic sanctions and military coercion are, by definition, cases of issue linkage. The existing literature on issue linkage and economic sanctions examines only cases where both sides in a dispute have separable preferences for the issues under dispute. This paper expands the current literature by introducing two innovations: states in a dispute may have nonseparable preferences for the issues under dispute, and they may not know the preferences of their opponent. Specifically, we develop a game of economic sanctions in which a player does not know whether its opponent has separable or nonseparable preferences. We derive the conditions under which coercer states will choose to impose sanctions on their opponents, and under which target states will choose to capitulate to or resist the demands of the coercer

Social Science Research Network, 2010

Abstract will be provided by author.

Social Science Research Network, 2009

... "Presidential Campaigns and the Knowledge Gap in Three Transitional Democracies." P... more ... "Presidential Campaigns and the Knowledge Gap in Three Transitional Democracies." Political Research Quarterly 59.1 (2006): 13-22. McGlone, Matthew S., Joshua Arson, and Diane Kobryowicz. ... Muhlberger, Peter, and Lori M. Weber. ...

Social Science Research Network, 2009

ABSTRACT Every year more states receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes to the fe... more ABSTRACT Every year more states receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes to the federal government. Since the early 1980s, when data on tax burdens per state are first available, the states that receive more in federal spending than taxes paid have been increasingly Republican in presidential elections. This pattern persisted in the 2008 presidential election. The impact of federal spending on a state’s Electoral Vote is increasing over the period 1984 to 2008 and remains statistically significant as a predictor of the vote when controlling for differences in ideology and opinions on issues across state populations and when controlling for per capita or median state income.

ABSTRACT Every year more states receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes to the fe... more ABSTRACT Every year more states receive more in federal spending than they pay in taxes to the federal government. Since the early 1980s, when data on tax burdens per state are first available, the states that receive more in federal spending than taxes paid have been increasingly Republican in presidential elections. This pattern persisted in the 2008 presidential election. The impact of federal spending on a state’s Electoral Vote is increasing over the period 1984 to 2008 and remains statistically significant as a predictor of the vote when controlling for differences in ideology and opinions on issues across state populations and when controlling for per capita or median state income.

Journal of Theoretical Politics, 2000

When some voters have nonseparable preferences across multiple binary issues, majority rule may n... more When some voters have nonseparable preferences across multiple binary issues, majority rule may not select a Condorcet winning set of outcomes when one exists, and the social choice may be a Condorcet loser or Pareto-dominated by every other set of outcomes. We present an empirical example of one such paradox from voting on the Internet. We evaluate potential solutions to the problem of nonseparable preferences in referendums, including set-wise voting, sequential voting, and vote-trading. Sequential voting and vote-trading prevent the selection of Condorcet losers and universally Pareto-dominated outcomes. Legislatures facilitate sequential voting and vote-trading better than referendums, suggesting that referendums increase the quantity of participants in democratic decisionmaking but decrease the quality of participation. KEY WORDS • Condorcet winner • nonseparable preferences • referendums • sequential voting • strategic voting • vote-trading 1. Most dictionaries list both 'referendums' and 'referenda' as acceptable plural forms of 'referendum'. We adopt the convention of the Oxford American Dictionary: 'The Latin word referendum (= referring) has no plural in Latin, so careful writers prefer to use referendums as the plural in English.'

Political Behavior, Dec 22, 2017

Tests of theories of the electoral origins of divided government hinge on the proper measurement ... more Tests of theories of the electoral origins of divided government hinge on the proper measurement of voter preferences for divided government. Deriving preferences for divided government from voters' ideological positions or responses to the standard American National Election Studies question inflates estimates of the proportion of people who prefer divided government. We present two alternative survey measures of preferences for divided government and evaluate the measures across multiple surveys. We find that the percentage of voters who prefer divided government is smaller than previous studies suggest. Voters who prefer divided government according to the new measures are significantly more likely than other Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (

A person has nonseparable preferences when her preference on an issue depends on the outcome of o... more A person has nonseparable preferences when her preference on an issue depends on the outcome of other issues. A model of survey responses in which preferences are measured with error implies that responses will change depending on the order of questions and vary over time when respondents have nonseparable preferences. Results from two survey experiments confirmthat changes in survey responses due to question order are explained by nonseparable preferences but not by the respondent's level of political information, partisanship, or ideology.