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Jam-barrel Politics

Author

Listed:
  • Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía
  • Juan S. Morales

Abstract

We study the executive-legislative exchange of centrally-allocated and individually targeted benefits (jam) for legislative support in Colombia. We use data from road building contracts, roll-call votes, and a leaked document which allegedly revealed the secret assignment of road projects to specific legislators. We find that assigned projects were more expensive relative to similar non-assigned projects, legislators who appeared in the leak were more likely to be "swing" voters in the congress, and legislators increased their support for the president’s party after their assigned contracts were signed. The results are stronger for legislators representing remote regions, where political institutions are weaker.

Suggested Citation

  • Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía & Juan S. Morales, 2019. "Jam-barrel Politics," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 596, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    • Handle: RePEc:cca:wpaper:596
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    legislatures; distributive politics; pork-barrel; legislative vote-buying; spatial isolation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D73 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Bureaucracy; Administrative Processes in Public Organizations; Corruption
    • H54 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Infrastructures
    • H57 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Procurement
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes

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