TY  - JOUR
AU  - Alston,Lee J.
AU  - Mueller,Bernardo
TI  - Pork for Policy: Executive and Legislative Exchange in Brazil
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11273
PY  - 2005
Y2  - April 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11273
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11273.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Lee J. Alston
Institutions Program
Institute of Behavioral Science
Department of Economics
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO  80309-0483
Tel: 303/492-4257
Fax: 303/492 2151
E-Mail: Lee.Alston@colorado.edu

Bernardo Mueller
SQN 215 Bloco C Apt 609
Brasilia, DF, 70874-030
Brazil
Tel: 55 61 8111-0349
E-Mail: bmueller@unb.br
AB  - The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 gave relatively strong powers to the President. We model and test Executive-Legislative relations in Brazil and demonstrate that Presidents have used pork as a political currency to exchange for votes on policy reforms. In particular Presidents Cardoso and Lula have used pork to exchange for amendments to the Constitution. Without policy reforms Brazil would have had greater difficulty meeting their debt obligations. The logic for the exchange of pork for policy reform is that Presidents typically have greater electoral incentives than members of Congress to care about economic growth, economic opportunity, income equality and price stabilization. Members of Congress generally care more about redistributing gains to their constituents. Given the differences in preferences and the relative powers of each, the Legislative and Executive benefit by exploiting the gains from trade.
ER  -