National or political cake? The political economy of intergovernmental transfers in Nigeria
研究了尼日利亚基于规则的政府间转移支付是否真能避免政治操纵，发现石油收入增加带来的增值税转移反而提升了执政党的选举表现，质疑了这种制度在资源丰富、制度薄弱国家的普适性。
Abstract Rule-based intergovernmental transfers are often presented as the panacea to avoid the manipulation of transfers for political motives. We question that assertion in the case of Nigeria, where these transfers are highly dependent on natural resources and likely to be subject to elite capture. In this article, we use oil windfalls as a source of exogenous variation in the political discretion an incumbent government can exert in rule-based transfers. Exploiting within-state variation between 2007 and 2015 in Nigeria, an increase in VAT transfers induced by higher oil windfalls is found to improve the electoral fortune of an incumbent government. Our results question the promotion of rule-based transfers as a one-fits-all institutional solution in resource-abundant countries with relatively weak institutions.