The Distribution of Distributive Politics: Governors' Opportunity Zone Decisions

• In Event: The Politics of Administration across the States

Abstract

How political leaders distribute valuable resources is a fundamental question of political science. It has motivated research across institutional and sub-field boundaries. Much of this work argues that political alignment often affects the resources that flow to different sub-units and geographies. However, there is less consensus on specific mechanisms. Some argue that the central government prioritizes areas that support, it while others argue that leaders prioritize political swing areas. Inferences in this literature are based on observing one institution allocating resources at one point in time or around a change in political control. We take a new approach by focusing state governments making similar sets of decisions simultaneously. Specifically, we study their implementation of the federal Opportunity Zones program that required governors to select some parts of their states for a new benefit from a well-defined list. We merge the list of eligible and designated census tracts with granular political and economic data. Using this case, we test different political and geographic mechanisms in a design that allows us to observe what factors best explain the allocation of benefits across the states. We find that some governors reward areas that supported them while others evince no political political patterns. Yet others prioritize wide geographic disbursement. We thus provide evidence for political distributive politics in some U.S. states, while also demonstrating that strategies for distributing resources are heterogeneous.

Authors

• David Glick, Boston University

• Maxwell B. Palmer, Boston University

• Katherine Levine Einstein, Boston University