Abstract

This paper empirically tests two prevalent but competing theories regarding the timing of appointments to the Board of Governors by presidential administrations. Both theories were developed simultaneously in the economics literature by Havrilesky and Gildea (1992) and Waller (1992) and are observationally equivalent by suggesting that administrations will select partisans early in their four-year terms and nonpartisans (sectoral) later in their four-year terms, although each bases this prediction on a different theoretical model. Several empirical replications (with updated data sets) presented here work to confirm the solutions put forth consistently by both models. However, the results of a new statistical test perhaps lends slightly more credence to the theoretical foundations of Waller's bargaining model.

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