When Do Legislators Pass on Pork? The Role of Political Parties in Determining Legislator Effort

A central challenge in political economy is to identify the conditions under which legislators seek to "bring home the pork" to constituents. We conduct the first systematic analysis of one determinant of constituency service, voter attachment to political parties, holding constant elector...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors:	Keefer, Philip, Khemani, Stuti
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	EN
Published:	2012
Subjects:	Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D720 Formal and Informal Sectors Shadow Economy Institutional Arrangements O170
Online Access:	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5905

id	okr-10986-5905
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-59052021-04-23T14:02:23Z When Do Legislators Pass on Pork? The Role of Political Parties in Determining Legislator Effort Keefer, Philip Khemani, Stuti Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D720 Formal and Informal Sectors Shadow Economy Institutional Arrangements O170 A central challenge in political economy is to identify the conditions under which legislators seek to "bring home the pork" to constituents. We conduct the first systematic analysis of one determinant of constituency service, voter attachment to political parties, holding constant electoral and political institutions. Our analysis takes advantage of data from a unique type of public spending program that is proliferating across developing countries, the constituency development fund (CDF), which offers more precise measures of legislator effort than are common in the literature. Examining the CDF in India, we find that legislator effort is significantly lower in constituencies that are party strongholds. This result, which is robust to controls for alternate explanations, implies that legislators pass on pork when voters are more attached to political parties. It has implications not only for understanding political incentives and the dynamics of party formation, but also for evaluating the impact of CDFs. 2012-03-30T07:35:06Z 2012-03-30T07:35:06Z 2009 Journal Article American Political Science Review 00030554 http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5905 EN http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo World Bank Journal Article
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	EN
topic	Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D720 Formal and Informal Sectors Shadow Economy Institutional Arrangements O170
spellingShingle	Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D720 Formal and Informal Sectors Shadow Economy Institutional Arrangements O170 Keefer, Philip Khemani, Stuti When Do Legislators Pass on Pork? The Role of Political Parties in Determining Legislator Effort
relation	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo
description	A central challenge in political economy is to identify the conditions under which legislators seek to "bring home the pork" to constituents. We conduct the first systematic analysis of one determinant of constituency service, voter attachment to political parties, holding constant electoral and political institutions. Our analysis takes advantage of data from a unique type of public spending program that is proliferating across developing countries, the constituency development fund (CDF), which offers more precise measures of legislator effort than are common in the literature. Examining the CDF in India, we find that legislator effort is significantly lower in constituencies that are party strongholds. This result, which is robust to controls for alternate explanations, implies that legislators pass on pork when voters are more attached to political parties. It has implications not only for understanding political incentives and the dynamics of party formation, but also for evaluating the impact of CDFs.
format	Journal Article
author	Keefer, Philip Khemani, Stuti
author_facet	Keefer, Philip Khemani, Stuti
author_sort	Keefer, Philip
title	When Do Legislators Pass on Pork? The Role of Political Parties in Determining Legislator Effort
title_short	When Do Legislators Pass on Pork? The Role of Political Parties in Determining Legislator Effort
title_full	When Do Legislators Pass on Pork? The Role of Political Parties in Determining Legislator Effort
title_fullStr	When Do Legislators Pass on Pork? The Role of Political Parties in Determining Legislator Effort
title_full_unstemmed	When Do Legislators Pass on Pork? The Role of Political Parties in Determining Legislator Effort
title_sort	when do legislators pass on pork? the role of political parties in determining legislator effort
publishDate	2012
url	http://hdl.handle.net/10986/5905
_version_	1764396724324925440

When Do Legislators Pass on Pork? The Role of Political Parties in Determining Legislator Effort

Similar Items