Congressional Committees and the Political Economy of Federal Outlays

R Michael Alvarez and Jason Saving

Public Choice, 1997, vol. 92, issue 1-2, 55-73

Abstract: The literature on the organization of the U.S. Congress has been dominated by 'distributive' and 'informational' theory. One important source of disagreement between these two theories is their characterization of whether individual legislators can engage in pork-barrel activities. Here the authors provide evidence which indicates that the pork barrel is alive and well in the contemporary U.S. Congress. They focus on whether members of power and constituency committees can direct disproportionate federal expenditures to their districts. Finding strong and systematic evidence of pork-barrel activities by committee members provides empirical support for distributive theories of legislative organization. Copyright 1997 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1997
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Working Paper: Congressional Committees and the Political Economy of Federal Outlays (1995)
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