Empirical Analyses of U.S. Congressional Voting on Recent FTA

This paper addresses the manner in which political and economic factors affect the voting behavior of House representatives on free trade agreement (FTA) implementation bills in the 108th and 109th Congresses in the U.S., using a simultaneous probit-tobit model consisting of contribution and voting equations. We find that representatives whose districts have relatively higher employment in 'trade-sensitive’ sectors are likely to oppose FTA bills. By comparing our results with the reports of the U.S. International Trade Commission, we discover that the voting behavior of representatives is more receptive to the sectors predicted to be adversely affected by an FTA than to those predicted otherwise. Another finding is that when FTA bills, for which partner countries do not share commonalities, are considered on the same day in the House, members’ voting behavior may be similar.