Journal ArticleDOI
The Determinants of Success of Special Interests in Redistributive Politics
Avinash Dixit,John Londregan +1 more
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In this paper, the authors examine what determines whether an interest group will receive favors in pork-barrel politics, using a model of majority voting with two competing parties, where each group's membership is heterogeneous in its ideological affinity for the parties.Abstract:
We examine what determines whether an interest group will receive favors in pork-barrel politics, using a model of majority voting with two competing parties. Each group's membership is heterogeneous in its ideological affinity for the parties. Individuals face a trade-off between party affinity and their own transfer receipts. The model is general enough to yield two often-discussed but competing theories as special cases. If the parties are equally effective in delivering transfers to any group, then the outcome of the process conforms to the "swing voter" theory: both parties woo the groups that are politically central, and most willing to switch their votes in response to economic favors. If groups have party affinities, and each party is more effective in delivering favors to its own support group, then we can get the "machine politics" outcome, where each party favors its core support group. We derive these results theoretically, and illustrate their operation in particular examples.read more
Citations
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Do formula-based intergovernmental transfer mechanisms eliminate politically motivated targeting? Evidence from Ghana
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TL;DR: This article showed that individuals with a positive experience of state services delivery are more likely to express belief in an unconditioned citizen obligation to pay tax and that norm adoption increases tax payment.
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Information and Ethnic Politics in Africa
TL;DR: This paper found that if part of ethnicity's utility is informational, we should expect that voters' reliance on ethnic cues will decline when certain types of higher-quality information are available, such as demographic information.
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Secretaries of Pork? A New Theory of Distributive Public Policy
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a theory of ideology-contingent executive decision making within a multiple-principals framework to explain the geographic distribution of policy benefits.
Journal ArticleDOI
Is the VAT a money machine
Michael Keen,Ben Lockwood +1 more
TL;DR: The authors consider what it might mean to describe the VAT as a money machine, test whether it is one, and ask if it might consequently be wise not to adopt it, and find broadly persuasive evidence, using panel data for the OECD, for a "weak form" of the money-machine hypothesis: that countries with a VAT raise more revenue than those without.
References
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Book
An Economic Theory of Democracy
TL;DR: Downs presents a rational calculus of voting that has inspired much of the later work on voting and turnout as discussed by the authors, particularly significant was his conclusion that a rational voter should almost never bother to vote.
Journal ArticleDOI
Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition
Assar Lindbeck,Jörgen W. Weibull +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, balanced budget redistribution between socioeconomic groups is modeled as the outcome of electoral competition between two political parties, and a sufficient condition for existence is given, requiring that there be enough heterogeneity with respect to party preferences in the electorate.
Journal ArticleDOI
Electoral Politics as a Redistributive Game
Gary W. Cox,Mathew D. McCubbins +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the optimal strategy for risk-averse candidates will be to promise redistributions first and foremost to their reelection constituency and thereby to maintain existing political coalitions.
Journal ArticleDOI
Political Preferences for the Pork Barrel: A Generalization
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors provide a rational explanation for the observation of oversized coalitions, often approaching unanimous size, in the realm of distributive policies, i.e., policies which concentrate benefits in specific geographic areas (states, congressional districts) while spreading costs through general taxation.
Journal ArticleDOI
Incentives to cultivate favored minorities under alternative electoral systems
TL;DR: In this article, a simple game model is used to compare the incentives for candidates to create inequalities among otherwise homogeneous voters, by making campaign promises that favor small groups, rather than appealing equally to all voters.
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