The Role of Electoral Incentives for Policy Innovation: Evidence from the US Welfare Reform

How do governors’ reelection motives affect policy experimentation? We develop a theoretical model of this situation, and then test the predictions in data on US state-level welfare reforms from 1978 to 2007. This period marked most dramatic shift social since New Deal. Our findings indicate that governors with strong electoral support are less likely experiment than little support. Yet, who cannot be reelected actually more striving for reelection. These robust controlling ideology, preferences redistribution, state legislature, cross-state learning. (JEL D72, H75, I32, I38)