The Political Economy of Pork: Project Selection at The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Abstract

In previous studies of distributive politics scholars have investigated legislative influence without accounting for the policies' independent merits. As a result, they have failed to include a plausible explanation of the counterfactual (i.e., which projects would have been funded in the absence of congressional committee influence), which has led to invalid inferences regarding legislative influence. The model of distributive politics is reformulated to account for an assumed efficient and/or equitable project allocation in the absence of legislative influence. Using data from proposed Army Corps of Engineers' projects and the funding recommendations of three institutions, the findings indicate that pork barrel politics indeed exists and imposes significant efficiency costs but that both equity and economic efficiency play prominent roles in the decision-making process as well. Cost-benefit analysis is seen to play a constructive role by improving the efficiency of project choice; and the corps's cost-benefit analysis guidelines are beneficial from the agency's organizational perspective, as well.

Geographical redistribution with disproportional representation: a politico-economic model of Norwegian road projects

“…Typical examples are allocation of military bases, highways, water projects and education facilities (Gilligan and Matsusaka 2001, Del Rossi 1995Del Rossi and Inman 1999;Hird 1991). Spending is negatively related to costbenefit ratios for US water projects, indicating that the suboptimality bias implied by the district demand model may be real (Hird 1991). Similar conclusions have been reached for centrally funded road expenditures in Norwegian counties (Elvik 1995).…”

“…The district demand model receives fairly strong empirical support where policies are geographically targetable in a strict sense. Typical examples are allocation of military bases, highways, water projects and education facilities (Gilligan and Matsusaka 2001, Del Rossi 1995Del Rossi and Inman 1999;Hird 1991). Spending is negatively related to costbenefit ratios for US water projects, indicating that the suboptimality bias implied by the district demand model may be real (Hird 1991).…”

Election goals and income redistribution: Recent evidence from Albania

“…The "ndings of many empirical studies suggest that politics may be responsible for large e$ciency losses (see Inman, 1988;Hird, 1991).…”

Women, Earmarks, and Substantive Representation

“…Through the examination of earmarks received by members in fiscal year 2008 Lazarus and Steigerwalt (2009) identify variables that influenced the earmark distribution; they find that organizational features, such as majority partisan control, affect individual member success. Their findings are supported by earlier, more policy-specific studies of funding requests in Congress that found institutional power (i.e., leadership in party and committee assignments) influences success in funding allocation (Balla et al 2002;Hird 1991;Roberts 1990). Other studies, however, suggest that district-level variables are better at predicting success than institutional power variables are (Anagnoson 1982;Arnold 1979;Rich 1989).…”