Do Small States Get More Federal Monies? Myth and Reality about the US Senate Malapportionment

31 Pages Posted: 3 Feb 2010

See all articles by Valentino Larcinese

Valentino Larcinese

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE)

Leonzio Rizzo

University of Ferrara - Faculty of Economics

Cecilia Testa

University of London, Royal Holloway College - Department of Economics

Date Written: April 2009

Abstract

We analyze the relationship between senate malapportionment and the allocation of the US federal budget to the states during the period 1978-2002. A substantial literature originating from the influential paper by ?) finds that small and overrepresented states get significantly larger shares of federal funds. We show that these studies suffer from fundamental identification problems and grossly overestimate the impact of malapportionment. Most of the estimated impact is not a scale but a change effect. Rather than evidence of "small state advantage", we find that states with fast growing population are penalized in the allocation of the federal budget independently of whether they are large or small.

JEL Classification: D72, H61, H77

Suggested Citation

Larcinese, Valentino and Rizzo, Leonzio and Testa, Cecilia, Do Small States Get More Federal Monies? Myth and Reality about the US Senate Malapportionment (April 2009). LSE STICERD Research Paper No. EOPP007, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1546901

Valentino Larcinese (Contact Author)

London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) ( email )

Houghton Street
London, WC2A 2AE
United Kingdom

Leonzio Rizzo

University of Ferrara - Faculty of Economics ( email )

C.so Ercole I° d'Este 37
Ferrara, 44100
Italy

Cecilia Testa

University of London, Royal Holloway College - Department of Economics ( email )

Royal Holloway College
Egham
Surrey, Surrey TW20 0EX
United Kingdom

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