Granting votes: exposing the political bias of intergovernmental grants using the within-between specification for panel data

Josip Glaurdić and Vuk Vukovic ()
Additional contact information
Josip Glaurdić: University of Luxembourg

Public Choice, 2017, vol. 171, issue 1, No 23, 223-241

Abstract: Abstract Instead of alleviating fiscal inequalities, intergovernmental grants are often used to fulfill the grantors’ political goals. This study uses a unique panel dataset on more than 500 Croatian municipalities over a 12-year period to uncover the extent to which grant distribution is biased owing to grantors’ electoral concerns. Instead of the default fixed effects approach to modelling panel data, we apply a novel within-between specification aimed at uncovering the contextual source of variation, focusing on the effects of electoral concerns on grant allocation within and between municipalities. We find evidence of a substantial political bias in grant allocations both within and between municipalities, particularly when it comes to local-level electoral concerns. The paper offers researchers a new perspective when tackling the issue of politically biased grant allocation using panel data, particularly when they wish to uncover the simultaneous impact of time-variant and time-invariant factors, or when they cannot apply a quasi-experimental approach because of specific institutional contexts.

Keywords: Intergovernmental grants; Political bias; Within-between specification; Vote-buying (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 D72 H77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11127-017-0435-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
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:kap:pubcho:v:171:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11127-017-0435-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11127/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11127-017-0435-y

Access Statistics for this article

Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II

More articles in Public Choice from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().