The name is absent

38

Chapter 4: Empirical Strategy

Introduction

In this chapter, I describe the strategies I have used to create my variables of
interest over the basis of the available information. Relevant measurement and
operationalization challenges appeared during the process of coding and capturing the
pieces of information I am interested in. For the sake of reliability, I have tried to use
previous work in the discipline as a proxy for my own decisions.

Legislative Performance

The main question of this project is how career decisions affect legislative
performance. As mentioned in the previous chapters, this inquiry has been already
posed for systems with different institutional settings. In the background of the
literature in American politics, the notion of legislators delivering bills that target their
current or prospective constituents is underlying. Different measures have been used as
indicators of that behavior, such as the amounts of money transferred (Stein and Bickers
1994,1995), the relative congruence of policy and opinion (Erikson, Wright, and McIver
1993), the overall number of bills submitted (Schlesinger 1966; Prewitt and Nowlin 1969;
Van Der Slik and Pemacciaro 1979), public position taking (Highton and Rocca 2005)
and the number of speeches and amendments offered relevant to public bills (Cook
1986, Hibbing 1986). Over the basis of the single-member districts structure, it is quite
easy to recognize the delivery of targeted policies by the delegate of the constituency.

Beyond the U.S. federal House, studies that have analyzed singular legislative
outputs out of individuals' ambitions do not abound. However, interesting approaches

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