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Are State Governments Roadblocks to Federal Stimulus? Evidence from Highway Grants in the 2009 Recovery Act

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  • Sylvain Leduc

    (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco)

Abstract

We examine how state governments adjusted spending in response to the large temporary increase in federal highway grants under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). The mechanism used to apportion ARRA highway grants to states allows us to isolate exogenous changes in these grants. We find that states increased highway spending over 2009 to 2011 more than dollar-for-dollar with the ARRA grants they received. We examine whether rent-seeking efforts could help explain this result. We find states with more political contributions from the public-works sector tended to spend more out of their ARRA highway funds than other states.

Suggested Citation

  • Sylvain Leduc, 2015. "Are State Governments Roadblocks to Federal Stimulus? Evidence from Highway Grants in the 2009 Recovery Act," 2015 Meeting Papers 1020, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    • Handle: RePEc:red:sed015:1020
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Allers, Maarten A. & Vermeulen, Wouter, 2016. "Capitalization of equalizing grants and the flypaper effect," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 115-129.
    3. J. Zachary Klingensmith, 2016. "Pork-Barrel Spending and State Employment Levels: Do Targeted National Expenditures Increase State Employment in the Long Run?," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 46(3), pages 257-279, Winter.

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