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Local Pork-Barrel Politics in National Pre-election Dates: The Case of Italy

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  • Limosani, Michele
  • Navarra, Pietro

Abstract

Political representation in the national assemblies is geographic and elected representatives care about who gains and who loses in their electoral districts. Since legislators are re-election oriented, their chances of electoral success are directly associated with the net benefits delivered to their constituents. In this perspective, geography is not only the basis for political organisation and representation, but also the hallmark of distributive politics. In this context, it is likely that locally elected politicians and party leaders standing in national elections would tend to cooperate in pre-election dates. In this paper we argue that local administrators have an incentive to manipulate local government outlays in connection with national election dates to enhance the re-election prospects of their national party leaders. In particular, given the matching character of national grants with local investment spending, we expect that in pre-election dates local policy-makers would be induced to raise investment outlays beyond their standard growth rate. This would determine inefficient local public spending as a result of the geographically-based system of democratic representation. The case study under our investigation is the behaviour of Italian local policy-makers in connection with national election dates. Copyright 2001 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Suggested Citation

  • Limosani, Michele & Navarra, Pietro, 2001. "Local Pork-Barrel Politics in National Pre-election Dates: The Case of Italy," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 106(3-4), pages 317-326, March.
  • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:106:y:2001:i:3-4:p:317-26
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    Cited by:

    1. Peter Spáč, 2021. "Pork barrel politics and electoral returns at the local level," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 479-501, September.
    2. Kim, Kangsoo & Baek, Seunghan & Cho, Hyejin, 2021. "Impact of a Preliminary Feasibility Study on the accuracy of traffic forecasts in the case of Korea," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 197-211.
    3. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Yannis Psycharis & Vassilis Tselios, 2016. "Politics and Investment: Examining the Territorial Allocation of Public Investment in Greece," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(7), pages 1097-1112, July.
    4. Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Yannis Psycharis & Vassilis Tselios, 2016. "Liberals, Socialists, and pork-barrel politics in Greece," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(8), pages 1473-1492, August.
    5. Banaszewska, Monika & Bischoff, Ivo, 2021. "Grants-in-aid and election outcomes in recipient jurisdictions: The impact of EU funds on mayoral elections in Poland," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    6. Timini, Jacopo, 2020. "Staying dry on Spanish wine: The rejection of the 1905 Spanish-Italian trade agreement," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    7. Paulo Reis Mourao, 2013. "Pork-Barrel versus Irrelevance Effects in Portuguese Public Spending," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 31(4), pages 649-666, August.

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