Political Arithmetic: New Evidence on the ‘Small-State Bias’ in Federal Spending

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Public Finance and Public Choice

Volume

29

Issue

1

Publisher

Bristol University Press

Publication Date

4-1-2011

First Page

55

Last Page

75

Abstract

This paper revisits the literature identifying a small-state bias in federal spending, according to which the distribution of federal funds favors the less populous states because they are ‘overrepresented’ in the U.S. Senate. Estimating a panel data model of die determinants of government spending per million capita across the 50 states over a longer time period [1972- 2000] than studied hitherto, and controlling for heterogeneity in the memberships of the House and Senate by including the tenures of die states’ congressional delegations, we report evidence supporting the existence of a bias toward states that are overrepresented in both chambers. Our key finding, however, is that the small-state bias is sensitive to the time period considered.

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