The Law of 1/n Revisited: Distributive Politics, Legislature Size, and the Costs of Collective Action

Abstract

The foundational model of distributive politics predicts a positive relationship between the number of legislative districts and the level of inefficiency of projects approved by the legislature—Weingast, Shepsle, and Johnsen's “Law of 1/n.” This relationship has been tested extensively in the empirical literature, with mixed results. This article presents a model wherein passing the omnibus legislation typical of distributive politics is a costly process. The model predicts a nonlinear relationship between legislature size and spending as increasing the size of the legislature also increases the costs of collective action. Results from an empirical exercise based on U.S. state legislatures (1962–2014) are consistent with the proposed model, showing a 1/n effect which diminishes at the margin as the legislature's size increases, especially in the lower chamber.

The Effect of Legislature Size on Public Spending: A Meta-Analysis

“…4 First, we fit nine multilevel meta-analyses using the 'meta' (Balduzzi, Rücker and Schwarzer 2019) and the 'dmetar' (Harrer et al 2019) packages for the R statistical language (R Core Team 2019). The studies that used more than one dependent or independent variable of interest are Bjedov, Lapointe and Madiès (2014), Bradbury and Crain (2001), Chen and Malhotra (2007), Crowley (2019), Erler (2007), Gilligan and Matsusaka (2001), Lee (2015), Lee (2016), Lee and Park (2018), Maldonado (2013), Primo (2006), Ricciuti (2003) and Ricciuti (2004).…”

“…Since many empirical tests of the 'law of 1/n' have produced conflicting results, scholars have expanded this research agenda and closely investigated how institutional factors condition the original formulation of the theory. For instance, such authors as Crowley (2019) and Pecorino (2018) accurately point out that collective action problems have been overlooked in the literature, and recent findings indicate that bicameralism (Maldonado 2013), intergovernmental competition (Crowley 2015), redistricting (Lee and Park 2018) and party ideology (Bjedov, Lapointe and Madiès 2014) strongly influence the relationship between seats and spending. Moreover, the literature has increasingly applied causal inference methods to estimate the effect of the 'law of 1/n', and in contrast to previous studies using panel data, regression-discontinuity designs (RDDs) generally indicate that having more legislators decreases public expenditures (De Benedetto 2018;Höhmann 2017;Lewis 2019;Pettersson-Lidbom 2012).…”

“… 3 The studies that used more than one dependent or independent variable of interest are Bjedov, Lapointe and Madiès (2014), Bradbury and Crain (2001), Chen and Malhotra (2007), Crowley (2019), Erler (2007), Gilligan and Matsusaka (2001), Lee (2015), Lee (2016), Lee and Park (2018), Maldonado (2013), Primo (2006), Ricciuti (2003) and Ricciuti (2004). …”

The Effect of Legislature Size on Public Spending: A Meta-Analysis

“…If the article employed a regression discontinuity design, we chose the coe cient from the optimal bandwidth or from the intermediate one. This sample encompasses 42 estimates, as 13 articles analysed two dependent or independent variables of interest (Baqir 1999;Bjedov et al 2014;Bradbury and Crain 2001;Chen and Malhotra 2007;Crowley 2019;Lee 2016;Lee and Park 2018;Maldonado 2013;Primo 2006;Ricciuti et al 2003). Our second sample, in contrast, contains all the 142 e ect sizes reported in the 29 papers.…”