Divide-the-Quarter: Testing Distributive Politics Theories in the States Using Federal Opportunity Zones

Abstract

Allocating valuable resources is one of the central functions of government. A large literature focuses on, and finds, evidence of political targeting when government officials distribute assets. In this short paper we use case in which all 50 governors simultaneously faced similar decisions about allocating a constrained set of valuable resources-tax advantaged status for economic development-to test political alignment theories of resource allocation alongside two less explored alternatives: spreading the wealth by geography, and policy need. We find that governors prioritized county lines such that sites in counties with fewer opportunities to distribute were disproportionately selected. We also find they were responsive to policy need. However, we do not find evidence of particularism based on the politics of an area's voters or its local elected officials. This work thus provides reason for caution when generalizing from the presidential particularism literature to different institutional contexts and different types of resources. It also underscores the primacy of geographic boundaries in political decision making, relative to population and other factors, even when they are not units of vote aggregation.