Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures

Toke Aidt and Julia Shvets ()

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: We study the effect of electoral incentives on the allocation of public services across legislative districts. We develop a model in which elections encourage individual legislators to cater to parochial interests and thus aggravate the common pool problem. Using unique data from seven US states, we study how the amount of funding that a legislator channels to his district changes when he faces a term limit. We find that legislators bring less state funds to their district when they cannot run for re-election. Consistent with the Law of 1/N, this tendency is less pronounced in states with many legislative districts.

Keywords: Term limits; electoral incentives; distributive politics; the Law of 1/N; US state legislatures. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-03-24
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures (2012)
Working Paper: Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:1130

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