REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
Published:
Morales Juan S. Classification JEL:
D72, D73, H54, K13, R11
The most recent
Juliana Jaramillo-Echeverri, Karina Acosta, Olga Lucia Acosta Navarro, Oscar Iván Ávila-Montealegre, Jhorland Ayala-García, Jaime Bonet-Morón, Jesus Botero, Luz A. Flórez, Daniela Gallo, Luis Armando Galvis-Aponte, Karelys Guzmán-Finol, Eduardo A. Haddad, Ana María Iregui-Bohórquez, David Camilo López-Valenzuela, Ligia Alba Melo-Becerra, Juan J. Ospina-Tejeiro, Andrea Otero-Cortés, Julian A. Parra-Polania, Gerson Javier Pérez-Valbuena, José Pulido, María Teresa Ramírez-Giraldo, Mario A. Ramos-Veloza, Charles Rahal, Jorge Leonardo Rodríguez-Arenas, Shadia Zardibia
Miguel Felipe Vanegas-Vanegas
Camilo Bohorquez-Penuela, Leonardo Bonilla-Mejía, Anabelle Couleau, Alexánder Almeida
This paper studies the executive-legislative exchange of centrally-allocated benefits (jam) for legislative support in Colombia using data from road building projects, legislative roll-call votes, and a leaked database which uncovered the assignment of road contracts to individual legislators. We draw hypotheses from a model in which an executive spreads jam to sway legislators. We document that assigned projects had excess costs, legislators targeted were more likely to be swing voters in congress, and legislators increased their support for the executive after their contracts were signed. The results are driven by legislators representing remote regions and constituencies with weaker political institutions.