IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/gigawp/52.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Patronage-Preserving Federalism? Legislative Malapportionment and Subnational Fiscal Policies in Argentina

Author

Listed:
  • Gordin, Jorge P.

Abstract

This paper builds on institutional analysis to generate new conclusions about the economic viability of federalism. It does so by suggesting that Weingast's seminal model of marketpreserving federalism falls short of accounting for the poor fiscal performance of multitiered systems in the developing world. This theoretical deficiency stems to a large extent from the insufficient attention paid by this model to the institutional complexity of federal systems, particularly the public policy effects of legislative malapportionment. Subsequent to an analytical discussion of the potential public spending and distributive politics distortions resulting from overrepresentation, we offer preliminary empirical evidence from Argentina, a federation exhibiting one of the most decentralized fiscal systems in the world and severe imbalances in the territorial distribution of legislative and economic resources. The findings show not only that said imbalances lead to sub-optimal fiscal results but also that they have a mutually-reinforcing relationship with regionalized patronage.

Suggested Citation

  • Gordin, Jorge P., 2007. "Patronage-Preserving Federalism? Legislative Malapportionment and Subnational Fiscal Policies in Argentina," GIGA Working Papers 52, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:gigawp:52
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/47763/1/605344841.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Porto & Pablo Sanguinetti, 2001. "Political Determinants of Intergovernmental Grants: Evidence From Argentina," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(3), pages 237-256, November.
    2. Horiuchi, Yusaku, 2004. "Malapportionment and Income Inequality: A Cross-National Analysis," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(01), pages 179-183, January.
    3. Charles M. Tiebout, 1956. "A Pure Theory of Local Expenditures," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(5), pages 416-416.
    4. Samuels, David & Snyder, Richard, 2001. "The Value of a Vote: Malapportionment in Comparative Perspective," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(4), pages 651-671, October.
    5. Weingast, Barry R, 1995. "The Economic Role of Political Institutions: Market-Preserving Federalism and Economic Development," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 1-31, April.
    6. Giovanni Sartori, 1994. "Comparative Constitutional Engineering," International Economic Association Series, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-349-22861-4, December.
    7. Atlas, Cary M, et al, 1995. "Slicing the Federal Government Net Spending Pie: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 624-629, 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. repec:gig:joupla:v:5:y:2013:i:1:p:127-150 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Taeko Hiroi, 2019. "Paradox of Redistribution: Legislative Overrepresentation and Regional Development in Brazil," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 49(4), pages 642-670.
    3. Rok Spruk & Mitja Kovac, 2020. "Persistent Effects of Colonial Institutions on Long‐Run Development: Local Evidence from Regression Discontinuity Design in Argentina," Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 17(4), pages 820-861, December.

    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. Ardanaz, Martín & Leiras, Marcelo & Tommasi, Mariano, 2012. "The Politics of Federalism in Argentina: Implications for Governance and Accountability," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3977, Inter-American Development Bank.
    2. Imai, Masami, 2022. "Local economic impacts of legislative malapportionment," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C).
    3. Taeko Hiroi, 2019. "Paradox of Redistribution: Legislative Overrepresentation and Regional Development in Brazil," Publius: The Journal of Federalism, CSF Associates Inc., vol. 49(4), pages 642-670.
    4. Muinelo-Gallo, Leonel & Rodriguez-Miranda, Adrián & Castro-Scavone, Pablo, 2017. "Intergovernmental transfers and regional income inequalities in Uruguay," MPRA Paper 76983, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Ardanaz, Martín & Leiras, Marcelo & Tommasi, Mariano, 2014. "The Politics of Federalism in Argentina and its Implications for Governance and Accountability," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 26-45.
    6. Septimiu-Rares SZABO, 2017. "The Empirical Relationship Between Fiscal Decentralization And Economic Growth: A Review Of Variables, Models And Results," Management Research and Practice, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 9(2), pages 47-66, June.
    7. Kessing, Sebastian G. & Konrad, Kai A. & Kotsogiannis, Christos, 2006. "Federal tax autonomy and the limits of cooperation," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(2), pages 317-329, March.
    8. Martinez-Vazquez, Jorge & McNab, Robert M., 2003. "Fiscal Decentralization and Economic Growth," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 31(9), pages 1597-1616, September.
    9. Robert P. Inman, 2008. "Federalism's Values and the Value of Federalism," NBER Working Papers 13735, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Emanuele Bracco & Alberto Brugnoli, 2012. "Runoff vs. plurality," Working Papers 23767067, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    11. Melle Marco C., 2014. "Eine europäische Bemessungsgrundlage für die Körperschaftsteuer? Konzeption und ordnungsökonomische Analyse / Conceptual design and constitutional economics analysis of a European tax base for corpora," ORDO. Jahrbuch für die Ordnung von Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, De Gruyter, vol. 65(1), pages 133-156, January.
    12. Lars P. Feld & Horst Zimmermann & Thomas Döring, 2003. "Föderalismus, Dezentralität und Wirtschaftswachstum," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 72(3), pages 361-377.
    13. Roberto Ezcurra & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2017. "Does ethnic segregation matter for spatial inequality?," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 17(6), pages 1149-1178.
    14. Pietrovito, Filomena & Pozzolo, Alberto Franco & Resce, Giuliano & Scialà, Antonio, 2023. "Fiscal decentralization and income (re)distribution in OECD countries’ regions," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 69-81.
    15. Anisah Alfada, 2019. "Does Fiscal Decentralization Encourage Corruption in Local Governments? Evidence from Indonesia," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-14, July.
    16. Robert Inman & Daniel Rubinfeld, 2002. "Subsidiarity, governance, and EU economic policy," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 3(04), pages 3-11, October.
    17. Wada, Junichiro & Kamahara, Yuta, 2018. "Studying malapportionment using α-divergence," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 77-89.
    18. Dillinger,William R. & Webb,Steven Benjamin, 1999. "Fiscal management in federal democracies : Argentina and Brazil," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2121, The World Bank.
    19. Septimiu-Rare? SZABO, 2013. "Decentralisation In The Context Of Multi-Level Governance: Study Case - Romania," Proceedings of Administration and Public Management International Conference, Research Centre in Public Administration and Public Services, Bucharest, Romania, vol. 9(1), pages 92-103, June.
    20. Andrew T. Young, 2021. "The political economy of feudalism in medieval Europe," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 127-143, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    federalism; legislative malapportionment; subnational fiscal policies; patronage; Argentina;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy

    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:zbw:gigawp:52. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dueiide.html .

    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.