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

This paper discusses what political and economic factors affect house representatives voting behavior on free trade agreement (FTA) implementation bills in the 108th and 109th Congresses in the U.S. using a simultaneous probit-tobit model that consists of contribution equations and voting equations. We find that partisanship, especially when the results of roll-calls have narrow margins; a relative employment size in trade-sensitive sectors; and contribution funds exert great influence on the voting behaviors of representatives. The marginal effects of political and economic variables in the study could provide some policy implications for the prediction of the passage of future FTA bills in Congress.