IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v34y1979i3p255-269.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Federal tax burdens and grant benefits to states: The impact of imperfect representation

Author

Listed:
  • James Bennett
  • Eddie Mayberry

Abstract

This paper has shown that the observed distribution pattern of federal grants and taxes among states is dependent on more than a simple redistributional motive. As previous studies have shown, the distribution of taxes and some grants does seem to be related to per capita income. However, our analysis reveals the difficulty of imputing altruistic motives to politicians without taking into account the institutional or behavioral environment within which the politician functions. The model we have developed indicates that politicians are largely interested in income distribution only to the extent that it furthers their self-interest. The ability of politicians to improve the welfare of the average citizen of his state will, in part, depend upon his seniority and the number of citizens he represents. Citizens of states with politicians of greater seniority, and who are represented by relatively more politicians are more likely to be treated more favorably by the federal government. In short, not all citizens receive the same quality or quantity of representation. The oft-repeated claim by incumbent politicians that they should be re-elected because their seniority gives them more influence appears to have merit. Taking into account the higher benefits and lower taxes resulting from a six-year senatorial term, the average citizen will find that re-election of the incumbent senator is worth approximately $ 45, other things equal. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers b.v. 1979

Suggested Citation

  • James Bennett & Eddie Mayberry, 1979. "Federal tax burdens and grant benefits to states: The impact of imperfect representation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 255-269, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:34:y:1979:i:3:p:255-269
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00225668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00225668
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00225668?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James A. Maxwell, 1954. "The Equalizing Effects Of Federal Grants," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 9(2), pages 209-215, May.
    2. Davis, Otto A. & Hinich, Melvin J. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1970. "An Expository Development of a Mathematical Model of the Electoral Process," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 64(2), pages 426-448, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gary Hoover & Paul Pecorino, 2005. "The Political Determinants of Federal Expenditure at the State Level," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 95-113, April.
    2. Dahlby, Bev & Rodden, Jonathan & Wilson, Sam, 2009. "A Median Voter Model of the Vertical Fiscal Gap," Working Papers 2009-14, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    3. Walter Cont & Alberto Porto, 2016. "Fiscal Policy and Income Distribution: Measurement for Argentina 1995 ¨C 2010," Review of Economics & Finance, Better Advances Press, Canada, vol. 6, pages 75-92, May.
    4. Robert K. Fleck, 2008. "Voter Influence and Big Policy Change: The Positive Political Economy of the New Deal," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(1), pages 1-37, February.
    5. Jorge Pablo Puig & Alberto Porto, 2021. "On the interaction between own revenues and intergovernmental transfers. Evidence from Argentinean local governments," Asociación Argentina de Economía Política: Working Papers 4508, Asociación Argentina de Economía Política.
    6. Fleck, Robert K., 2001. "Population, Land, Economic Conditions, and the Allocation of New Deal Spending," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 296-304, April.
    7. Stephen Hoenack, 1983. "On the stability of legislative outcomes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 251-260, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Assar Lindbeck & Jörgen Weibull, 1987. "Balanced-budget redistribution as the outcome of political competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 52(3), pages 273-297, January.
    2. John Jackson, 2014. "Location, location, location: the Davis-Hinich model of electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(1), pages 197-218, April.
    3. Daniela Giannetti & Itai Sened, 2004. "Party Competition and Coalition Formation," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 16(4), pages 483-515, October.
    4. Gary Cox, 1984. "An expected-utility model of electoral competition," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 18(4), pages 337-349, August.
    5. Kenneth Koford, 1982. "Centralized vote-trading," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 245-268, January.
    6. Larry Samuelson, 1984. "Electoral equilibria with restricted strategies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 307-327, January.
    7. Ulrich Matter & Michaela Slotwinski, 2016. "Precise Control over Legislative Vote Outcomes: A Forensic Approach to Political Economics," CESifo Working Paper Series 6007, CESifo.
    8. Harry de Gorter & Johan F. M. Swinnen, 1994. "The Economic Polity Of Farm Policy," Journal of Agricultural Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(3), pages 312-326, September.
    9. John W. Patty, 2007. "Incommensurability and Issue Voting," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 19(2), pages 115-131, April.
    10. David Austen-Smith, 1981. "Party policy and campaign costs in a multi-constituency model of electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 37(3), pages 389-402, January.
    11. Alexander A. Schuessler, 2000. "Expressive Voting," Rationality and Society, , vol. 12(1), pages 87-119, February.
    12. Stefano Camatarri & Francesco Zucchini, 2019. "Government coalitions and Eurosceptic voting in the 2014 European Parliament elections," European Union Politics, , vol. 20(3), pages 425-446, September.
    13. Richard McKelvey, 1980. "Ambiguity in spatial models of policy formation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 35(4), pages 385-402, January.
    14. Gaëtan Fournier & Amaury Francou, 2023. "Location games with references," Post-Print hal-04241721, HAL.
    15. Tovey, Craig A., 2010. "The instability of instability of centered distributions," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 59(1), pages 53-73, January.
    16. Luc Anselin, 1983. "A Simulation Framework For Modeling Dynamics In Policy Space," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 7(1), pages 25-38, February.
    17. Christine Fauvelle-Aymar & Abel François, 2003. "Campagne électorale, préférences politiques et participation. Une étude empirique sur les élections législatives françaises de 1997," Cahiers de la Maison des Sciences Economiques j04009, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1).
    18. Reynal-Querol, Marta, 2005. "Does democracy preempt civil wars?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 21(2), pages 445-465, June.
    19. Steven Matthews, 1979. "A simple direction model of electoral competition," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(2), pages 141-156, June.
    20. Gershon Alperovich, 1984. "The economics of choice in the allocation of intergovernmental grants to local authories," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 44(2), pages 285-296, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:34:y:1979:i:3:p:255-269. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.