Party discipline and pork barrel politics
By: Gene M. Grossman, Elhanan Helpman.
Contributors: Helpman, Elhanan.; National Bureau of Economic Research.
Series: NBER working paper series ;; working paper 11396; Working paper series (National Bureau of Economic Research : Online) ;; working paper no. 11396.
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research
Published: 2005
Place of publication: Cambridge, MA
Language: eng
Format: Electronic resource
Subjects: Party discipline.; Fiscal policy.; Government spending policy.
Description: "Polities differ in the extent to which political parties can pre-commit to carry out promised policy actions if they take power.  Commitment problems may arise due to a divergence between the ex ante incentives facing national parties that seek to capture control of the legislature and the ex post incentives facing individual legislators, whose interests may be more parochial.  We study how differences in "party discipline" shape fiscal policy choices.  In particular, we examine the determinants of national spending on local public goods in a three-stage game of campaign rhetoric, voting, and legislative decision-making.  We find that the rhetoric and reality of pork-barrel spending, and also the efficiency of the spending regime, bear a non-monotonic relationship to the degree ofparty discipline"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references.
Title from PDF file as viewed on 6/20/2005.
Also available in print.
System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Mode of access: World Wide Web.