IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlawec/v42y1999i2p675-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Districts, Diversity, and Fiscal Biases: Evidence from the American States

Author

Listed:
  • Crain, W Mark

Abstract

This paper argues that the configuration of legislative districts and not merely the number of districts matters for fiscal performance. District configuration mediates the extent of constituent diversity both across and within districts. Both dimensions of diversity affect the political calculus associated with pork barrel politics. Empirical findings for the American states reveal statistically and quantitatively significant effects of constituent diversity on state government spending. Together the analysis and evidence emphasize the conditional nature of the "Law of 1/n." In the United States, this point acquires practical relevance from the Constitutional mandate for decennial redistricting in all jurisdictions based on geographic representation. Copyright 1999 by the University of Chicago.

Suggested Citation

  • Crain, W Mark, 1999. "Districts, Diversity, and Fiscal Biases: Evidence from the American States," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(2), pages 675-698, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlawec:v:42:y:1999:i:2:p:675-98
    DOI: 10.1086/467438
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/467438
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/467438?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. Gilligan, Thomas W & Matsusaka, John G, 1995. "Deviations from Constituent Interests: The Role of Legislative Structure and Political Parties in the States," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(3), pages 383-401, July.
    2. James M. Poterba & Jürgen von Hagen, 1999. "Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number pote99-1.
    3. Poterba, James M, 1996. "Budget Institutions and Fiscal Policy in the U.S. States," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 86(2), pages 395-400, May.
    4. Crain, W Mark & Muris, Timothy J, 1995. "Legislative Organization of Fiscal Policy," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 38(2), pages 311-333, October.
    5. Gordon Tullock, 1959. "Problems of Majority Voting," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(6), pages 571-571.
    6. James M. Poterba, 1996. "Do Budget Rules Work?," NBER Working Papers 5550, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Germà Bel & Ringa Raudla & Miguel Rodrigues & António F. Tavares, 2018. "These rules are made for spending: testing and extending the law of 1/n," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 41-60, January.
    2. Edward López & R. Jewell, 2007. "Strategic institutional choice: Voters, states, and congressional term limits," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 137-157, July.
    3. Henrik Jordahl & Che-Yuan Liang, 2010. "Merged municipalities, higher debt: on free-riding and the common pool problem in politics," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 143(1), pages 157-172, April.
    4. Corbett A. Grainger, 2010. "Redistricting and Polarization: Who Draws the Lines in California?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 545-567.
    5. George R. Crowley, 2019. "The Law of 1/n Revisited: Distributive Politics, Legislature Size, and the Costs of Collective Action," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(2), pages 667-690, October.
    6. DelRossi, Alison F. & Inman, Robert P., 1999. "Changing the price of pork: the impact of local cost sharing on legislators' demands for distributive public goods," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 247-273, February.
    7. Toke S. Aidt & Julia Shvets, 2012. "Distributive Politics and Electoral Incentives: Evidence from Seven US State Legislatures," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 1-29, August.
    8. Knight, Brian, 2004. "Parochial interests and the centralized provision of local public goods: evidence from congressional voting on transportation projects," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(3-4), pages 845-866, March.
    9. Reed, W. Robert, 2006. "Democrats, republicans, and taxes: Evidence that political parties matter," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(4-5), pages 725-750, May.
    10. Dongwon Lee & Sangwon Park, 2018. "Court-ordered redistricting and the law of 1/n," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(3), pages 507-528, September.
    11. Dongwon Lee, 2016. "Supermajority rule and bicameral bargaining," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 53-75, October.
    12. George R. Crowley, 2015. "Local Intergovernmental Competition and the Law of 1/n," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(3), pages 742-768, 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. Bradbury, John Charles & Crain, W. Mark, 2001. "Legislative organization and government spending: cross-country evidence," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 309-325, December.
    2. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Timothy Besley & Anne Case, 2003. "Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(1), pages 7-73, March.
    4. Lars Feld & Christoph Schaltegger, 2010. "Political stability and fiscal policy: time series evidence for the Swiss federal level since 1849," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 144(3), pages 505-534, September.
    5. Rafal Benecki & Jens Hölscher & Mariusz Jarmuzek, 2006. "Fiscal Transparency and Policy Rules in Poland," CASE Network Studies and Analyses 0327, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    6. Daniel Höhmann, 2017. "The effect of legislature size on public spending: evidence from a regression discontinuity design," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 345-367, December.
    7. Lars P. Feld & Christoph A. Schaltegger, 2004. "Do Large Cabinets Favor Large Governments? Evidence from Swiss Sub-federal Jurisdictions," Marburg Working Papers on Economics 200421, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, Department of Economics (Volkswirtschaftliche Abteilung).
    8. Schaltegger, Christoph A. & Feld, Lars P., 2009. "Do large cabinets favor large governments? Evidence on the fiscal commons problem for Swiss Cantons," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(1-2), pages 35-47, February.
    9. Tyrefors Hinnerich, Björn, 2009. "Do merging local governments free ride on their counterparts when facing boundary reform?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 721-728, June.
    10. Asatryan, Zareh & Castellón, César & Stratmann, Thomas, 2018. "Balanced budget rules and fiscal outcomes: Evidence from historical constitutions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 105-119.
    11. Christian Bjørnskov & Axel Dreher & Justina Fischer, 2008. "Cross-country determinants of life satisfaction: exploring different determinants across groups in society," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 30(1), pages 119-173, January.
    12. Fermín Cabasés & Pedro Pascual & Jaime Vallés, 2007. "The effectiveness of institutional borrowing restrictions: Empirical evidence from Spanish municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(3), pages 293-313, June.
    13. Timothy C. Irwin, 2015. "Defining The Government'S Debt And Deficit," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(4), pages 711-732, September.
    14. Stijn Goeminne & Benny Geys & Carine Smolders, 2008. "Political fragmentation and projected tax revenues: evidence from Flemish municipalities," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 15(3), pages 297-315, June.
    15. Benno Torgler & Christoph A. Schaltegger, 2005. "Trust and Fiscal Performance: A Panel Analysis with Swiss Data," Working Papers 2005.61, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei.
    16. Blume, Lorenz & Voigt, Stefan, 2013. "The economic effects of constitutional budget institutions," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 236-251.
    17. Cutler, David M. & Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Zeckhauser, Richard, 1999. "Restraining the Leviathan: property tax limitation in Massachusetts," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 313-334, March.
    18. Hauptmeier, Sebastian & Rother, Philipp & Holm-Hadulla, Fédéric, 2010. "The impact of numerical expenditure rules on budgetary discipline over the cycle," Working Paper Series 1169, European Central Bank.
    19. Jones, Mark P. & Sanguinetti, Pablo & Tommasi, Mariano, 2000. "Politics, institutions, and fiscal performance in a federal system: an analysis of the Argentine provinces," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 305-333, April.
    20. Joachim Wehner, 2006. "Assessing the Power of the Purse: An Index of Legislative Budget Institutions," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 54(4), pages 767-785, December.

    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:ucp:jlawec:v:42:y:1999:i:2:p:675-98. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLE .

    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.