What did the Earmark Ban Do? Evidence from Intergovernmental Grants

Critics of the 2011 congressional earmark ban argue that legislators have simply replaced earmarking with other means of directing federal funds to their home districts. I estimate the impact of the ban using data on federal competitive grants to state and local governments. Because several earmark reforms predated the 2011 ban, I test for a break in the relative trends between regions receiving more earmarks versus those receiving fewer earmarks. My results indicate that for grants to local governments, the 2011 ban had no effect. For grants to state governments, I find that the earmark ban of 2011 may have had an impact; I find statistically and economically significant negative effects, suggesting that the earmark ban may have altered the distribution of intergovernmental grants to state governments. I also show that a large bias in earmarks existed between high and low income districts, suggesting that the earmark ban potentially improved equality.