Congressional voting patterns on NAFTA: an empirical analysis - North American Free Trade Agreement

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Oct, 1996 by Leo Kahane

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Appendix

DATA DEFINITIONS AND SOURCES

Unless otherwise stated, all data are for the year 1989 which conforms to the employment measures used to construct the variables GAINERS and LOSERS. Economic data are taken from Statistical Abstract of the United States, US Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, (various years) unless otherwise noted.

VOTE - dichotomous variable equal to 1 if a senator voted in favor of NAFTA approval, 0 otherwise. Source: Congressional Roll Call 1993, Congressional Quarterly Inc.: Washington DC 1994.

SDEMO - dichotomous variable equal to 1 if a senator is a Democrat from either Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas or Virginia, 0 otherwise. Source: (same as VOTE).

NDEMO - dichotomous variable equal to 1 if the member of congress is a Democrat but not part of SDEMO, 0 otherwise. Source: (same as VOTE).

UNION - union membership as a percent of total manufacturing employees.

LCV - percent of environmental-related votes cast by a congress member that agree with the position of the League of Conservation Voters. Source: 1993 National Environmental Scorecard, League of Conservation Voters: 1994.

LCON - labor contributions to a member of Congress, most recent campaign. Source: US Federal Election Commission, FEC reports on financial activity: Final Report, US Senate and House campaigns, (various years).

Relative LCON - equal to LCON divided by total non-party campaign contributions. Source: (same as LCON).

IMMIG - immigrants admitted by state of intended residence from Mexico. Source: INS, Immigration and Naturalization Service Yearbook 1989.

Relative IMMIG - equal to IMMIG divided by state employment.

UNEMP - percent unemployed of the civilian labor force as of 1992.

EXPORT - US Exports by state of origin, millions of dollars, 1992.

Relative EXPORT - EXPORT divided by value added by state, 1992.

The employment data used to construct GAINERS and LOSERS was taken Stern, Deardorff and Brown, (1992), table A-23. These employment measures are in thousands of workers. Relative measures are created by dividing each measure by state employment.

[Leo H. Kahane, PhD., is assistant professor of economics at California State University, Hayward, CA 94542.] He wishes to thank two anonymous referees for their valuable suggestions.