Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures
Abstract
We study the effect of electoral incentives on the allocation of public services across legislative districts. We develop a model in which elections encourage individual legislators to cater to parochial interests and thus aggravate the common pool problem. Using unique data from seven US states, we study how the amount of funding that a legislator channels to his district changes when he faces a term limit. We find that legislators bring less state funds to their district when they cannot run for re-election. Consistent with the Law of 1/N, this tendency is less pronounced in states with many legislative districts.Download Info
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Paper provided by Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge in its series Cambridge Working Papers in Economics with number 1130.Length:
Date of creation: 24 Mar 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:cam:camdae:1130
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Web page: http://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/index.htm
Related research
Keywords:Other versions of this item:
- Toke S. Aidt & Julia Shvets, 2012. "Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 1-29, August.
- Toke Aidt & Julia Shvets, 2011. "Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures," CESifo Working Paper Series 3405, CESifo Group Munich.
- D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2011-06-04 (All new papers)
- NEP-CDM-2011-06-04 (Collective Decision-Making)
- NEP-POL-2011-06-04 (Positive Political Economics)
References
References listed on IDEASPlease report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
- Brian Knight, 2005. "Estimating the Value of Proposal Power," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(5), pages 1639-1652, December.
- Pettersson-Lidbom, Per, 2012.
"Does the size of the legislature affect the size of government? Evidence from two natural experiments,"
Journal of Public Economics,
Elsevier, vol. 96(3), pages 269-278.
- Per Pettersson-Lidbom, 2004. "Does the Size of the Legislature Affect the Size of Government? Evidence from Two Natural Experiments," Discussion Papers 350, Government Institute for Economic Research Finland (VATT).
- Gilligan, Thomas W & Matsusaka, John G, 1995. "Deviations from Constituent Interests: The Role of Legislative Structure and Political Parties in the States," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(3), pages 383-401, July.
Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Jon X. Eguia & Antonio Nicolò, 2011. "On the Efficiency of Partial Information in Elections," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 234, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
- Marroquín Arreola, Juan & Rios Bolívar, Humberto, 2012. "Gasto público, permanencia en el poder y crecimiento económico /Public Spending, Staying Power and Economic Growth," Estudios de Economía Aplicada, Estudios de Economía Aplicada, vol. 30, pages 363 (22 pag, Abril.
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