Disastrous Discretion: Political Bias in Relief Allocation Varies Substantially with Disaster Severity
研究美国1965-2018年飓风灾害后总统救灾声明分配，发现中等强度飓风时政治偏见最严重，同党地区获得多达两倍的声明，解释8.3%的救济支出。
Abstract Allocation decisions are vulnerable to political influence, but it is unclear in which situations politicians use their discretionary power in a partisan manner. We analyze the allocation of presidential disaster declarations in the United States, exploiting the spatiotemporal randomness of all hurricane strikes from 1965 to 2018 along with changes in political alignment. We show that decisions are unbiased when disasters are either very strong or weak. Only after medium-intensity hurricanes do areas governed by presidents’ co-partisans receive up to twice as many declarations. This hump-shaped political bias explains 8.3% of overall relief spending, totaling about USD 400 million per year.