Reallocative Federalism: Legislative Over-Representation and Public Spending in the Western Hemisphere

This article is an inquiry into the political economy of federalism, exploring the basic question of whether the overrepresentation of territories (states or provinces) in national legislatures of federal systems affect the territorial distribution of public spending by federal governments. The hypo...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Opinião pública : publicaçao do CESOP 2003-04, Vol.9 (1), p.98-123
Main Authors: Gibson, Edward L, Calvo, Ernesto F, Falleti, Tulia G
Format: Article
Language:Portuguese
Subjects:
Argentina
Brazil
Federalism
Government Spending
Mexico
Political Representation
Regional Differences
Resource Allocation
United States of America
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article is an inquiry into the political economy of federalism, exploring the basic question of whether the overrepresentation of territories (states or provinces) in national legislatures of federal systems affect the territorial distribution of public spending by federal governments. The hypothesis tested says that it does, & that territorial overrepresentation produces a distortion of federal spending that benefits the population of overrepresented territories. To capture this connection a conceptual distinction is made between territorial overrepresentation & the nonproportional distribution of public funds: countries where this connection exists are identified as cases of reallocative federalism, whereas countries with territorial patterns of public spending proportional to the population are identified as cases of proportional federalism. The evidence is drawn from subnational-level data (at the provincial/state level) from the Western Hemisphere's four largest federal countries: the US, Brazil, Mexico, & Argentina. 10 Tables, 26 References. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:0104-6276