Political alignment and the allocation of the COVID-19 response funds—evidence from municipalities in Poland

Abstract This paper aims to analyse the allocation of the COVID-19 response funds from the perspective of the political alignment hypothesis. The authors focus on the allocation of the second and third rounds of the Governmental Fund for Local Investments (part of the COVID-19 Response Fund) in Poland. Using the logit and OLS models and the regression discontinuity design the authors show that mayors aligned with the central government were significantly more likely to receive the funds, as well as in higher per capita values, than mayors aligned with the opposition or unaligned with any party in parliament when the allocation was based on a discretionary decision. The results support the political alignment hypothesis and highlight the danger of partiality in the allocation of the COVID-19 response funds.