IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jnlpup/v36y2016i04p547-571_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Agency policy preferences, congressional letter-marking and the allocation of distributive policy benefits

Author

Listed:
  • Mills, Russell W.
  • Kalaf-Hughes, Nicole
  • MacDonald, Jason A.

Abstract

When allocating distributive benefits, bureaucrats must balance their own policy preferences with requests from members of Congress. The elimination of earmarking may provide agency personnel with greater discretion in the allocation of distributive benefits. Using a novel data set of congressional letters written in support of their community’s air traffic control towers, we estimate a model that explores the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to issue national interest exemptions to continue operations at towers slated for closure as a result of budget sequestration. Our analysis suggests that members of Congress do not enjoy the influence they possessed under earmarking when using a new method, letter-marking, to influence how agencies distribute benefits.

Suggested Citation

  • Mills, Russell W. & Kalaf-Hughes, Nicole & MacDonald, Jason A., 2016. "Agency policy preferences, congressional letter-marking and the allocation of distributive policy benefits," Journal of Public Policy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 36(4), pages 547-571, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:jnlpup:v:36:y:2016:i:04:p:547-571_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0143814X15000252/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:jnlpup:v:36:y:2016:i:04:p:547-571_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/pup .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.