Public Resources Allocation and Regional Representation in the Legislature : A Case Study of Thailand's Budget

过去的研究表明，在成熟的代议制民主国家，政治家为本国选民服务的动机是预算分配的决定因素。本研究试图通过调查2000-2005财政年度泰国76个省的立法代表性和预算地理分配之间的关系，将分析扩展到一个新兴的民主国家。小组数据分析表明，执政党成员在省代表在众议院的存在对政府支出的分配有影响。由执政党成员代表的省份往往会获得相对于其收入贡献的更大数额的财政支出，并且无论控制政府行政分支的政党如何，都可以在资本支出方面观察到这种关联。这一结果表明，公共选择理论也适用于年轻的民主国家，民主制度可以通过发展中经济体的公共资源分配对经济绩效产生影响。

Past studies have identified that the incentives of politicians to serve their home constituencies is a determinant of budget allocation in mature representative democracies. This research is an attempt to extend the analysis to a fledgling democracy by investigating the relationship between legislative representation and geographical allocation of budget among Thailand's 76 provinces with data from the 2000-2005 fiscal years. Panel data analyses demonstrate that the presence of ruling party members in the province delegates in the House of Representatives has implications on the distribution of government expenditure. The provinces that are represented by ruling party members tend to receive a greater amount of fiscal outlays relative to their revenue contribution, and this association is observed for capital expenditure regardless of political parties controlling the executive branch of the government. This result suggests that public choice theory holds in young democracies as well, and that democratic institutions could have economic performance consequences through public resource allocation in developing economies.