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1
Following the suggestion of Little and Peery (2003) this paper refers to states with term
limits as “termed” and those without term limits as “untermed”.
2
Similar results are also obtained if the models are estimated using panel corrected
standard errors as described in Beck and Katz (1995).
3
Results not reported here but are available from the author.
4
In addition, relying on aggregate instead of individual-level data, may also account for
the failure to detect last-term legislative shirking. Further, the failure to detect a fiscal
cycle in termed states does not imply that legislative shirking does not occur during a
legislator’s final term in office. On the contrary, see Sarbaugh-Thompson et al (2004) for
evidence of increased shirking in termed states. The results presented here, however, do
show that where shirking does occur it has little effect on fiscal policy.
5
However, this common pool resource problem is mitigated if one committee has control
over all spending decision (Crain and Murris 1995). This study does not control for
states that might have this type of committee organization.
6
This finding would need to be tested on the full sample to be confirmed.
7
Results not reported here but are available from the author.
8
See Martorano (2001) for other possible measures.
9
This approach will be pursued in future research.
10
Throughout this section, such limits will be referred to as tenure limits.
Convention