Using tax dollars for re-election: the impact of pork-barrel spending on electoral success

J. Zachary Klingensmith ()
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J. Zachary Klingensmith: Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, Black School of Business

Constitutional Political Economy, 2019, vol. 30, issue 1, No 2, 49 pages

Abstract: Abstract Pork-barrel spending is the appropriation of federal money for use in projects that only benefit narrowly defined groups. In the past, researchers have attempted to show that pork-barrel spending increases the likelihood of an incumbent being reelected but empirical evidence has been hard to find. I hypothesize that pork-barrel spending does not directly increase the likelihood of reelection; instead, pork-barrel spending can be used to increase fundraising and the additional campaign funds are then used to increase the likelihood of being reelected. I find that a $10 million increase in pork-barrel spending will lead to a 0.10% increase in the share of the vote in an election. While this may not seem like a major advantage to some, several elections over the past few years have been decided by

Keywords: Pork-barrel spending; Incumbency advantage; Elections; Campaign fundraising (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H59 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10602-018-9269-y

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