國立臺灣大學政治科學論叢

Abstract / Chinese PDF Download

This  paper  explores  the  motives  of  legislators  seeking  policy  benefits  forbusinesses  around  their  districts,  analyzed  from  the  perspective  of  distributivetheories.    The authors observe bill-initiation behavior of legislators from the 3 rd  to5 th  Legislative Yuan in Taiwan.    In addition, the markup records and roll call votesunder the deliberation processes of two business-related bills are also investigated.These   two   bills   are   “The   Amendment   of   Labor   Insurance   Act”   and   “TheAmendment  of  Sale  Tax  Act”,  which  were  passed  in  the  2 nd   and  4 th   LegislativeYuan respectively.    Through this analysis, the authors try to answer whether or notlegislative behavior is affected either by the business around their districts or by thebusiness background of legislators themselves.The  authors  are  not  able  to  see  specific  factors  contributing  to  legislators’behavior from the limited markup records of the two bills under investigation alone,besides party affiliation. Yet statistical analysis of roll-call-votes on these two billsshows that ruling party members, legislators with business backgrounds, legislatorswith standing committee memberships, senior legislators, and legislators who onceserved as local elected officers tend to favor the policy interests of businesses.The  analyses  of  bill-initiation,  Poisson  regression  and  Negative  Binomialanalysis do not show any significant influence from “businesses in and around thedistricts”  on  the  initiation  of  business-related  bills;  nor  from  the  “legislators’business backgrounds”.    This is true in the respective terms of the 3 rd , 4 th , and 5 thLegislative Yuan. However, other factors still play important roles in explaining thebill-initiation behavior of legislators favoring businesses.  In  sum,  this  paper  does  not  find  that  businesses  around  voter  districts  norlegislators’  business  backgrounds  effect  bill-initiation  behavior.  However,  thispaper does find that legislators’ business backgrounds have a significant impact onbusiness-related  roll  call  votes.    Theses  findings  have  some  implications  fordistributive politics in Taiwan.