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The use of intergovernmental grants to municipalities for electoral purposes by subnational governments

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  • Kadour Mehiriz

Abstract

Subnational governments devote a significant share of their financial resources to help municipalities provide local public services to their citizens. Compared to the large number of studies on national governments, little effort has been devoted to the influence of distributive politics on the use of intergovernmental grants by subnational governments. To fill this gap, this study uses a data set covering the period 2001–2011 to verify to what extent the Québec government used conditional grants to municipalities for electoral purposes. The results of this study show that the allocation of grants to municipalities is not exempt from electoral politics as municipalities located in districts held by governing parties or in high electoral competition districts receive more grants than other municipalities. However, the influence of electoral politics decreases substantially when the management of intergovernmental grants is under tight scrutiny by the opposition parties, mass media and the population. These findings suggest that distributive politics can be conceptualised as a political agency problem whose prevalence is seriously constrained by the improvement of the transparency of public policies management.

Suggested Citation

  • Kadour Mehiriz, 2017. "The use of intergovernmental grants to municipalities for electoral purposes by subnational governments," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(2), pages 274-290, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:flgsxx:v:43:y:2017:i:2:p:274-290
    DOI: 10.1080/03003930.2016.1263189
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    Cited by:

    1. Søren Frank Etzerodt & Niels Jørgen Mau Pedersen, 2024. "Formula-based Grants as Pork Barrel Politics: Targetability and the Political-strategic Use of Grants," Munich Papers in Political Economy 34, Munich School of Politics and Public Policy and the School of Management at the Technical University of Munich.
    2. Yannis Psycharis & Stavroula Iliopoulou & Maria Zoi & Panagiotis Pantazis, 2021. "Beyond the socio‐economic use of fiscal transfers: The role of political factors in Greek intergovernmental grant allocations," Regional Science Policy & Practice, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 982-1008, June.

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