Factors of Spatial Allocation of Pork Barrel Grants in Czechia 2003-2009: The Role of Deputies' Home Locations
Abstract
Political, financial and legislative support of one's own constituency or home location belongs to the main interests of politicians. The paper attempts to identify a spatial pattern in pork barrel grants allocated during the endorsement of draft state budgets by the Chamber of Deputies.
The factor of deputies' home locations is analysed. Correlation analysis at district level exploits Parliamentary Gazette data on approved deputies' amendments to the draft state budget and a list of deputies' home municipalities from electoral database of the Czech Statistical Office.
At municipal level, a local indicator of spatial autocorrelation was employed to discover several spatial clusters of high and low pork barrel support, which was compared with deputies' home locations. Although several pork barrel grants were allocated to these locations, no general correlation was confirmed.