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Political Systems and the Inequality of Provision of Local Public Goods
1 : Georgetown University
2 : Ecares, ULB
This paper studies the provision of local public goods and the eect of the political
system on its allocation. Recognizing that most public goods are de facto local,
we propose a model of allocation of local public good under political competition.
We derive predictions regarding the relationship between public good provision and
population in localities that dier depending on the regime: majoritarian and proportional
representation systems. Using the satellite nightlight data as a proxy for
local public good provision, we show that the predicted patterns are observed. Our
nding raises interesting questions regarding the measurement of inequality in public
good allocation.
