Legislative institutions and distributive politics: Evidence from Germany’s federal budget committee

Anina Harter

No 75, Berlin School of Economics Discussion Papers from Berlin School of Economics

Abstract: This paper studies how legislative institutions shape distributive policy outcomes. Specifically, I analyze the effect of budget committee membership in the German Bundestag using a novel dataset of 4,629 geocoded federal grants (1999–2023). Employing a within-legislator difference-in-differences design, I estimate that gaining a seat on the budget committee doubles the average per capita grant amount received by a legislator’s electoral district. This committee benefit corresponds to approximately 2.6 million EUR over a typical budget committee career. Distributive benefits are driven by internal committee hierarchy rather than mandate type or affiliation with governing parties.

Keywords: distributive politics; localized benefits; legislative institutions; parliamentary committees; geocoded data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D71 D72 H50 H81 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 68 pages
Date: 2025-09-29
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bdp:dpaper:0075

DOI: 10.48462/opus4-5942

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