Legislative institutions and distributive politics – Evidence from Germany’s federal budget committee
BSoE Discussion Paper 75
single authored

Abstract:
This paper studies how legislative institutions shape distributive policy outcomes. Specifically, I analyze the effect of budget committee membership in the German Bundestag using a novel dataset of 4,629 geocoded federal grants (1999-2023). Employing a within-legislator difference-in-differences design, I estimate that gaining a seat on the budget committee doubles the average per capita grant amount received by a legislator's electoral district. This committee benefit corresponds to approximately 2.6 million EUR over a typical budget committee career. Distributive benefits are driven by internal committee hierarchy rather than mandate type or affiliation with governing parties.