Which States Support Which Ones? Predicting Federal Flow Through From the Feds to the States (original) (raw)

The Correlates of State Policy and the Structure of State Panel Data

State Politics & Policy Quarterly

The American states offer a wealth of variation across time and space to understand the sources, dynamics, and consequences of public policy. As laboratories of socioeconomic and political differences, they enable both wide-scale assessments of change and studies of specific policy choices. To leverage this potential, we constructed and integrated a database of thousands of state-year variables for designing and executing social research: the Correlates of State Policy Project (CSPP). The database offers one-stop shopping for accurate and reliable data, allows researchers to assess the generalizability of the relationships they uncover, enables assessment of causal inferences, and connects state politics researchers to larger research communities. We demonstrate CSPP’s use and breadth, as well as its limitations. Through an applied empirical approach familiar to the state politics literature, we show that researchers should remain attentive to regional variation in key variables and...

The power of purse: what do the data say on US federal budget allocation to the states

2005

This paper provides new evidence on the relevance of alternative theories of federal budget allocation to states. We primarily intend to estimate the size and relative importance of different institutional and political factors in determining such allocation. The main advantage of our analysis compared to most previous studies is that we use panel data for a relatively long time span. We find that socioeconomic characteristics are very important explanatory variables of spending allocation to states. However, these characteristics are not sufficient to explain the disparities in the allocation of federal monies. Some states receive a disproportionate amount of money for reasons essentially linked to politics and the budget allocation process. In particular we find that the overrepresentation of small states determined by the Senate and Presidential election systems has an important impact on federal budget allocation. States whose governor has the same political affiliation of the President receive more federal funds in the form of procurement and defense spending. On the other hand, the political alignment between governor and majority in the House and/or Senate does not affect the allocation of federal funds. We do not find any evidence that marginal states receive more funding; on the opposite we find that safe states tend to be rewarded. Finally, the appropriation committee membership affects the distribution of broad spending categories like total expenditure per capita and direct payments to individuals, while senior members have a disproportionate impact on grant allocation. * We wish to thank Tim Besley, Jim Snyder and the participants to the STICERD work in progress seminar and to the Royal Holloway internal seminar for useful comments and suggestions. Remaining errors are only ours.

The power of the purse: what do the data say on US federal budget allocation to the states

2004

This paper provides new evidence on the determinants of the allocation of the US federal budget to the states and tests the capability of congressional, electoral and partisan theories to explain such allocation. We …nd evidence of a strong in ‡uence of the president while support for congressional theories is rather weak. Prestige committee membership is not conducive to pork-barrelling, nor does membership of the House armed service committee a¤ects defense spending. On electoral theories, we do not …nd any evidence that marginal states receive more funding; on the opposite, safe states tend to be rewarded. At the same time, states that are historically volatile in their presidential support tend to receive more funds. Finally, we …nd good evidence supporting partisan theories of budget allocation. States whose governor has the same political a¢ liation of the President receive more federal funds, while states whose representatives belong to a majority opposing the president party receive less funds.

Donor States and Donee States: Investigating Geographic Redistribution in the U.S. Federal-Aid Highway Program

In 2009, the U.S. government spent more than $42 billion on the federal-aid highway program. Most of this money was raised from motor vehicle taxes, whose proceeds are deposited in the highway trust fund. Federal motor vehicle user taxes flow into the fund and federal aid expenditures flow out from it to build and maintain highways and other transportation infrastructure. With so much money at stake it should be no surprise that expenditure decisions are the subject of intense political debate. Chief among these debates is the conflict between donor states, whose residents pay more in highway user taxes than the state receives in federal highway aid and donee states, whose residents pay less in highway user taxes than the state receives in federal highway aid. While this geographic redistribution has been masked recently by infusions of general fund revenue into the trust fund, the debate nevertheless continues. This paper attempts to understand why some states are donors and others are donees by simultaneously testing four hypotheses about the geographic redistribution of federal highway dollars. These hypotheses relate to a state's highway need, economic condition, level of urbanization, and representation on the key Congressional committees that oversee the highway program. The analysis shows that redistribution does not favor states with larger highway systems, more highway use, or lower median state incomes, all of which are different indicators of need. Instead, states that are less urban and better represented on the four key Congressional committees generally benefit from redistribution.

The Allocation of the US Federal Budget to the States: Evidence on the Power of the Purse

2005

This paper provides new evidence on the determinants of the allocation of the US federal budget to the states. Departing from the existing literature that gives prominence to Congress, we carry on an empirical investigation on the influence of the President. Our findings suggest that the President has a strong influence on the distribution of federal outlays to the States. First, the presidential race matters.

Impact of Federal Transfers on State and Local Own Source Spending

A large amount of economic research has examined the impact of federal grants on state and local spending. Much of this previous research, however, has focused exclusively on the impact of federal grants on total state and local spending itself rather than on the extent to which federal grants drive additional state and local spending and, in turn, drive demand for higher state and local taxes, fees, and other own-source revenues. Our study departs from earlier literature by examining the impact of federal transfers on state and local taxes and fees. This is the most comprehensive analysis to date, using information from U.S. states spanning the period from 1972 to 2012. Our results clearly demonstrate that federal transfers to state and local governments result in higher own-source revenue, taxes, and fees. Regression results indicate that state and local revenues from taxes, fees, and other own-sources will rise by 82 cents for each additional dollar in federal transfers. A hypothetical 10 percent increase in federal transfers would amount to about 62billiontothestates.Usingourregressionresults,andholdingpersonalincomeconstant,thiswouldbeassociatedwithapproximately62 billion to the states. Using our regression results, and holding personal income constant, this would be associated with approximately 62billiontothestates.Usingourregressionresults,andholdingpersonalincomeconstant,thiswouldbeassociatedwithapproximately50 billion in additional increased taxes, charges, or from other revenue sources, resulting an additional government burden of $158 per person.

Sources of Data about State Government Revenues and Expenditures

2000

Assessing the New Federalism is a multiyear Urban Institute project designed to analyze the devolution of responsibility for social programs from the federal government to the states, focusing primarily on health care, income security, employment and training programs, and social ...