Political Determinants of Intergovernmental Grants: Evidence From Argentina

Abstract

This paper explores the determinants of federal grants allocation across provincial states in Argentina. Our analysis suggests that the redistributive pattern implicit in the federal system of intergovernmental grants cannot be explained on normative grounds exclusively. In order to understand the rationale behind federal grants distribution, a positive approach could render better results. Speci®cally, we claim that the distribution of federal grants could be associated with political variables such as the political representation of jurisdictions at Congress. The econometric analysis suggests that the signi®cant disparity observed in the per capita representation across dierent provinces is an important factor explaining the allocation of those transfers. In this respect, overrepresented provinces, both at the senate and at the lower chamber, have received, on average, higher resources from the national government compared to more populous and less represented states. These results are consistent with those observed in other countries.

Pork Barrel Politics in Postwar Italy, 1953-1994

“…Advances in data availability now permit extension of this line of research to other countries. Results identify patterns of partisan-political distributive politics in nations as diverse as Albania (Case 2001), Argentina (Calvo and Murillo 2004;Porto and Sanguinetti 2001), Australia (Denemark 2000;Worthington and Dollery 1998), Brazil (Ames 2001), Canada (Kneebone and McKenzie 2001), Colombia (Crisp and Ingall 2002) England (Ward and John 1999;John and Ward 2001), France (Cadot, Röller, and Stephan 2006), Germany (Stratmann and Baur 2002), India (Rao and Singh 2005), Japan (Horiuchi and Saito 2003), Mexico (Magaloni 2006, ch. 4), Peru (Schady 2000), Russia (Treisman 1996), South Korea (Kwon 2005), and Sweden (Dahlberg and Johansson 2002), as well as across Africa (Kasara 2007).…”

Movilidad Intergeneracional Y Gasto Publico en Argentina

“…La variable construida a partir de esta información indica para cada hijo adulto la proporción de años durante su adolescencia o juventud en los que el gobernador de su provincia fue del mismo partido que el presidente al mando. La inclusión de esta variable como control en el modelo empírico se fundamenta principalmente en la evidencia empírica disponible que revela que más allá de las necesidades y capacidades fiscales locales, otros factores relacionados con las influencias políticas juegan un rol importante en la determinación de las asignaciones horizontales de las transferencias intergubernamentales (Boex y Martinez-Vazquez, 2005;Porto y Sanguinetti, 2001, Atlas et al, 1995.…”

Determinants of Resource Allocation: Do Bureaucratic Factors Matter?

“…States that are organised under the Federal system of government are even more complex because they do not only cover different spatial units but different autonomous governmental units. This obviously brings forth a new form of dimension to the issue of governmental transfers (Porto and Sanguinetti, 2001). Generally, governments around the world assume a normative posture in the distribution of resources to different jurisdictions across the country.…”

“…Generally, governments around the world assume a normative posture in the distribution of resources to different jurisdictions across the country. By assuming the normative stands, governments would like to have us believe that the pool of government resources is proportionally distributed among all sub-government units based on factors such as population density/size, expenditure needs of regions or even based on the levels of poverty in the various regions (Rothchild, 1984;Porto and Sanguinetti, 2001;Pearson, 2002;Boex and Martinez-Vasquez, 2005).…”

“…That underlining these transfers are politico-economic factors which are normally ignored by the normative explanations. The argument that the administration of governmental grants is politically motivated is supported by a host of extant literature (Su and Yang, 2000;Sanguinetti, 2001;Boex, 2003;Boex and Martinez-Vasquez, 2005;Salman, 2007;Abdulai and Hume, 2015;Abdulai, 2016). The empirical studies cited above make it clear that the transfer of governmental resources from the centre to various sub-government units is not only influenced by normative factors but also politico-economic factors.…”