Replication data for: The Cabals of a Few or the Confusion of a Multitude: The Institutional Trade-Off between Representation and Governance

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Leah Brooks; Justin Phillips; Maxim Sinitsyn

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Project Citation:

Brooks, Leah, Phillips, Justin, and Sinitsyn, Maxim. Replication data for: The Cabals of a Few or the Confusion of a Multitude: The Institutional Trade-Off between Representation and Governance. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2011. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2019-10-13. https://doi.org/10.3886/E114753V1

Project Description

Summary: Our model illustrates how political institutions trade off between the competing goals of representation and governance, where governance is the responsiveness of an institution to a single pivotal voter. We use exogenous variation from the 30-year history of the federal Community Development Block Grant program to identify this trade-off. Cities with more representative governments—those with larger city councils—use more grant funds to supplement city revenues rather than implementing tax cuts, thereby moving policy further away from the governance ideal. In sum, more representative government is not without cost. (JEL D72, H71, R50)

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: community development block grant; cities; council size; representation

JEL Classification:
      D72 Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
      H71 State and Local Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
      R50 Regional Government Analysis: General

Geographic Coverage: United States

Time Period(s): 1/1960 – 12/2004

Universe: United States cities

Data Type(s): administrative records data; census/enumeration data; aggregate data

Methodology

Data Source: Census Bureau; Department of Housing and Urban Development

Unit(s) of Observation: city,

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Published Versions

V1 [2019-10-13]

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