IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v67y2001i3p598-617.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Foreign Aid and Domestic Politics: Voting in Congress and the Allocation of USAID Contracts across Congressional Districts

Author

Listed:
  • Robert K. Fleck
  • Christopher Kilby

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between congressional support for foreign aid and the distribution of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) contract spending across congressional districts within the United States. The extent to which such a relationship matters has become increasingly important in recent years, as the end of the Cold War and the advent of the Republican‐controlled Congress have eroded the traditional base of support for foreign aid. We develop a model to illustrate how the distribution of contract spending could be used to increase support for foreign aid, but at the expense of development impact, in effect trading quality for quantity. Data on domestic foreign aid contract spending and votes in the 104th Congress House of Representatives allow us to test whether the geographic distribution of USAID contract spending within the United States is consistent with a systematic attempt to build support for foreign aid in Congress. Econometric results provide little evidence of such attempts, apparently because voting on this issue is insensitive to the distribution of contract spending.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert K. Fleck & Christopher Kilby, 2001. "Foreign Aid and Domestic Politics: Voting in Congress and the Allocation of USAID Contracts across Congressional Districts," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(3), pages 598-617, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:67:y:2001:i:3:p:598-617
    DOI: 10.1002/j.2325-8012.2001.tb00358.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2001.tb00358.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2001.tb00358.x?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
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wright, Gavin, 1974. "The Political Economy of New Deal Spending: An Econometric Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 56(1), pages 30-38, February.
    2. Maizels, Alfred & Nissanke, Machiko K., 1984. "Motivations for aid to developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 12(9), pages 879-900, September.
    3. Thomas Romer & Howard Rosenthal, 1978. "Political resource allocation, controlled agendas, and the status quo," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 27-43, December.
    4. Eggleston, Robert C., 1987. "Determinants of the levels and distribution of PL 480 food aid: 1955-1979," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 797-808, June.
    5. Grier, Kevin B & McDonald, Michael & Tollison, Robert D, 1995. "Electoral Politics and the Executive Veto: A Predictive Theory," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(3), pages 427-440, July.
    6. Robert K. Fleck, 1999. "Electoral Incentives, Public Policy, and the New Deal Realignment," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(3), pages 377-404, January.
    7. Keith Griffin, 1991. "Foreign Aid after the Cold War," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 22(4), pages 645-685, October.
    8. Stratmann, Thomas, 1992. "Are Contributions Rational? Untangling Strategies of Political Action Committees," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(3), pages 647-664, June.
    9. Jeffrey James, 1995. "The State, Technology and Industrialization in Africa," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-37719-6, December.
    10. Bender, Bruce & Lott, John R, Jr, 1996. "Legislator Voting and Shirking: A Critical Review of the Literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 87(1-2), pages 67-100, April.
    11. Goff, Brian L & Grier, Kevin B, 1993. "On the (Mis)measurement of Legislator Ideology and Shirking," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 76(1-2), pages 5-20, 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. Robert K. Fleck & Christopher Kilby, 2006. "World Bank Independence: A Model and Statistical Analysis of US Influence," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 224-240, May.
    2. Robert K. Fleck & Christopher Kilby, 2006. "How Do Political Changes Influence US Bilateral Aid Allocations? Evidence from Panel Data," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(2), pages 210-223, May.
    3. Mohamed Naser, 2017. "Kuwait's Foreign Policy towards Regional Issues in the Middle East from 2003 to 2014," Asian Social Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 13(11), pages 1-95, November.
    4. McLean, Elena V., 2023. "Looking for advice: The politics of consulting services procurement in the World Bank," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 161(C).
    5. Gabriella R. Montinola, 2022. "Simone Dietrich. 2021. States, Markets and Foreign Aid. (New York: Cambridge University Press)," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 17(3), pages 663-666, July.

    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. Eline Poelmans & John A. Dove & Jason E. Taylor, 2018. "The politics of beer: analysis of the congressional votes on the beer bill of 1933," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 81-106, January.
    2. Robert K. Fleck, 1999. "Electoral Incentives, Public Policy, and the New Deal Realignment," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(3), pages 377-404, January.
    3. Bryan Caplan, 2001. "Has Leviathan Been Bound? A Theory of Imperfectly Constrained Government with Evidence from the States," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 67(4), pages 825-847, April.
    4. Franklin G. Mixon & Rand W. Ressler & M. Troy Gibson, 2003. "Congressional Memberships as Political Advertising: Evidence from the U.S. Senate," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 70(2), pages 414-424, October.
    5. Rhode, Paul W. & Snyder, Jr., James M. & Strumpf, Koleman, 2018. "The arsenal of democracy: Production and politics during WWII," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 166(C), pages 145-161.
    6. Michael A. Nelson, 2000. "Electoral Cycles and the Politics of State Tax Policy," Public Finance Review, , vol. 28(6), pages 540-560, November.
    7. Stadelmann, David & Portmann, Marco & Eichenberger, Reiner, 2013. "Quantifying parliamentary representation of constituents’ preferences with quasi-experimental data," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 170-180.
    8. Price V. Fishback & John Joseph Wallis, 2012. "What Was New About the New Deal?," NBER Working Papers 18271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Fleck, Robert K., 2013. "Why did the electorate swing between parties during the Great Depression?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 50(4), pages 599-619.
    10. Larcinese, Valentino & Snyder, James M. & Testa, Cecilia, 2013. "Testing Models of Distributive Politics using Exit Polls to Measure Voters’ Preferences and Partisanship," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(4), pages 845-875, October.
    11. Fishback, Price V. & Kantor, Shawn & Wallis, John Joseph, 2003. "Can the New Deal's three Rs be rehabilitated? A program-by-program, county-by-county analysis," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 278-307, July.
    12. Groseclose, Timothy J. & McCarty, Nolan, 1999. "The Politics of Blame: Bargaining before an Audience," Research Papers 1617, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    13. Christopher Magee, 2000. "Why Do Political Action Committees Give Money to Candidates? Campaign Contributions, Policy Choices, and Election Outcomes," Macroeconomics 0004038, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Taylor Fahy Winkleman & Grace Bagwell Adams, 2017. "An empirical assessment of the relationship between Official Development Aid and child mortality, 2000–2015," International Journal of Public Health, Springer;Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+), vol. 62(2), pages 231-240, March.
    15. Ronald N. Johnson & Gary D. Libecap, 2003. "Transaction Costs and Coalition Stability under Majority Rule," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 41(2), pages 193-207, April.
    16. Zamir Eyal, 2020. "Refounding Law and Economics: Behavioral Support for the Predictions of Standard Economic Analysis," Review of Law & Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(2), pages 1-35, July.
    17. Fidel Perez-Sebastian & Ohad Raveh, 2019. "Federal tax policies, congressional voting and natural resources," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(3), pages 1112-1164, August.
    18. Bronars, Stephen G & Lott, John R, Jr, 1997. "Do Campaign Donations Alter How a Politician Votes? Or, Do Donors Support Candidates Who Value the Same Things That They Do?," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 40(2), pages 317-350, October.
    19. Jason Taylor & Fred Bateman, 2007. "Does the distribution of New Deal spending reflect an optimal provision of public goods?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 8(3), pages 1-5.
    20. Price Fishback, 2017. "How Successful Was the New Deal? The Microeconomic Impact of New Deal Spending and Lending Policies in the 1930s," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1435-1485, 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:wly:soecon:v:67:y:2001:i:3:p:598-617. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    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.