Highway Politics in a Divided Government : Evidence from Mexico
This paper combines local election results and geo-referenced road construction data over 1993-2012 to investigate political bias in road infrastructure investment in a democratic setting, focusing on the case of Mexico. Using a regression disconti...
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| Language: | English |
| Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2019
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| Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/493691547756360057/Highway-Politics-in-a-Divided-Government-Evidence-from-Mexico http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31178 |
| Summary: | This paper combines local election
results and geo-referenced road construction data over
1993-2012 to investigate political bias in road
infrastructure investment in a democratic setting, focusing
on the case of Mexico. Using a regression discontinuity
design, the paper finds strong evidence of partisan
allocation of federally-funded highways to municipalities
that voted for the president's party in legislative
races, nearly doubling the stock of highways compared to
opposition municipalities. The extent of political
favoritism in highway provision is stronger under divided
government when the president has no majority in the
legislature, suggesting political efforts to control the Congress. |
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