Do Earmarks Target Low-Income and Minority Communities? Evidence from US Drinking Water

Joseph Shapiro

Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Abstract: The quality and inequality of US drinking water investments have gained attention after recent environmental disasters in Flint, Michigan, and elsewhere. We compare the formula-based targeting of subsidized loans provided under the Safe Drinking Water Act with the targeting of congressional drinking water earmarks (``pork barrel'' spending). Earmarks are often critiqued for potentially privileging wealthier and more politically connected communities. We find that earmarks target Black, Hispanic, and low-income communities, partly due to targeting water systems serving large populations. Earmark and loan targeting differ significantly across all the demographics we analyze. Compared to Safe Drinking Water Act loans, earmarks disproportionately target Hispanic communities but not Black or low-income communities.

Keywords: Social and Behavioral Sciences; Earmarks; drinking water; inequality; targeting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-01-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-ure
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/7w68132r.pdf;origin=repeccitec (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Do Earmarks Target Low-Income and Minority Communities? Evidence from US Drinking Water (2024)
Working Paper: Do Earmarks Target Low-Income and Minority Communities? Evidence from US Drinking Water (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cdl:agrebk:qt7w68132r

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lisa Schiff ().