The Right Type of Legislator: A Theory of Taxation and Representation
We develop a theory of taxation and the distribution of government spending in a citizen-candidate model of legislatures. Individuals are heterogeneous in two dimensions: productive ability in the private sector and negotiating ability in politics. When these are positively correlated, rich voters always prefer a rich legislator, but poor voters face a trade-off. A rich legislator will secure more pork for the district, but will also prefer lower taxation than the poor voter. Our theory organizes a number of stylized facts across countries about taxation and redistribution, parties, and class representation in legislatures. We demonstrate that spending does not necessarily increase when the number of legislators increases, as the standard common-pool intuition suggests, and that many policies aimed at increasing descriptive representation may have the opposite effect.
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Copy CitationAndrea Mattozzi and Erik Snowberg, "The Right Type of Legislator: A Theory of Taxation and Representation," NBER Working Paper 24279 (2018), https://doi.org/10.3386/w24279.Download Citation
Published Versions
Andrea Mattozzi & Erik Snowberg, 2018. "The right type of legislator: A theory of taxation and representation," Journal of Public Economics, vol 159, pages 54-65. citation courtesy of 
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