Party Control of State Government and the Distribution of Public Expenditures*
研究了1957至1997年间美国州政府政党控制如何影响跨县转移支付分配，发现执政党偏向支持自己的地区，且政党更替后资金流向随之改变，同时支出增加会提高后续选举投票率。
Abstract This paper examines the effects of party control of state governments on the distribution of intergovernmental transfers across counties from 1957 to 1997. We find that the governing parties skew the distribution of funds in favor of areas that provide them with the strongest electoral support. This is borne out in two ways. (i) Counties that traditionally give the highest vote share to the governing party receive larger shares of state transfers to local governments. (ii) When control of the state government changes, the distribution of funds shifts in the direction of the new governing party. We find only weak evidence that parties reward electorally pivotal counties or counties in electorally pivotal legislative districts. Finally, we find that increased spending in a county increases voter turnout in subsequent elections. This suggests that parties have an electoral incentive to skew the distribution of funds to influence future election results, and the mechanism through which this works is “mobilization” rather than “conversion” of voters in a fixed electorate.