{"title":"Congressional Bargaining and the Distribution of Grants","authors":"Leah Rosenstiel","doi":"10.1111/lsq.12411","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p>In the United States, state and local governments receive over $700 billion annually in federal grants, yet relatively little is known about how Congress designs these programs. I formalize a theory of congressional bargaining over grants and test the theory using an original dataset of Senate amendments. The results suggest that congressional rules and political considerations shape, and at times distort, federal grant programs. While grant programs may be intended to improve education or provide health care, I find that members of Congress treat these programs as opportunities to procure more funding for their constituents. Further, I show how coalitions are shaped by the status quo policy and the distribution of population, poverty, and other demographic characteristics across states. These results have important implications for our understanding of the policymaking process and who benefits from federal programs.</p>","PeriodicalId":47672,"journal":{"name":"Legislative Studies Quarterly","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Legislative Studies Quarterly","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/lsq.12411","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
In the United States, state and local governments receive over $700 billion annually in federal grants, yet relatively little is known about how Congress designs these programs. I formalize a theory of congressional bargaining over grants and test the theory using an original dataset of Senate amendments. The results suggest that congressional rules and political considerations shape, and at times distort, federal grant programs. While grant programs may be intended to improve education or provide health care, I find that members of Congress treat these programs as opportunities to procure more funding for their constituents. Further, I show how coalitions are shaped by the status quo policy and the distribution of population, poverty, and other demographic characteristics across states. These results have important implications for our understanding of the policymaking process and who benefits from federal programs.
期刊介绍：
The Legislative Studies Quarterly is an international journal devoted to the publication of research on representative assemblies. Its purpose is to disseminate scholarly work on parliaments and legislatures, their relations to other political institutions, their functions in the political system, and the activities of their members both within the institution and outside. Contributions are invited from scholars in all countries. The pages of the Quarterly are open to all research approaches consistent with the normal canons of scholarship, and to work on representative assemblies in all settings and all time periods. The aim of the journal is to contribute to the formulation and verification of general theories about legislative systems, processes, and behavior.
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