Disastrous Discretion: Political Bias in Relief Allocation Varies Substantially with Disaster Severity

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Schneider, Stephan A.; Kunze, Sven
• 署名单位: Stockholm University; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Fraunhofer Gesellschaft; Fraunhofer Germany; Fraunhofer Systems & Innovation Research
• 刊物名称: REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND STATISTICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0034-6535
• DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01319
• 发表日期: 2025-09
• 页码: 1448-1459
• 关键词: impact; aid; favoritism; transfers; weather; ECONOMY; voters; budget; REPRESENTATION; governments

摘要

Allocations decisions are vulnerable to political influence, but it is unclear in which situations politicians use their discretionary power in a partisan manner. We analyze the allocation of presidential disaster declarations in the United States, exploiting the spatiotemporal randomness of all hurricane strikes from 1965 to 2018 along with changes in political alignment. We show that decisions are unbiased when disasters are either very strong or weak. Only after medium-intensity hurricanes do areas governed by presidents' co-partisans receive up to twice as many declarations. This hump-shaped political bias explains 8.3% of overall relief spending, totaling about USD 400 million per year.