Inefficiency in legislative policy-making

"This paper develops an infinite horizon model of public spending and taxation in which policy decisions are determined by legislative bargaining. The policy space incorporates both productive and distributive public spending and distortionary taxation. The productive spending is investing in a public good that benefits all citizens (e.g., national defense or air quality) and the distributive spending is district-specific transfers (e.g., pork barrel spending). Investment in the public goodcreates a dynamic linkage across policy-making periods. The analysis explores the dynamics oflegislative policy choices, focusing on the efficiency of the steady state level of taxation andallocation of tax revenues. The model sheds new light on the efficiency of legislative policy-makingand has a number of novel positive implications"--National Bureau of Economic Research web site.