Direct and Indirect Representation

How much can a constituency influence the power of its representative in the legislature? We develop a theoretical model of the constituency basis of legislator influence. The key players in the model are interest groups who may receive targeted transfers from the legislature. The model predicts that the amount of transfers that such groups receive is increasing in their ability to help a party win a legislative seat in the next election. We test this claim using the changes in Japanese central-to-municipality transfers after a representative passes away while in office. We find that electorally “strong” constituency groups do not lose transfers when they lose their representatives. However, when “weak” constituency groups lose their representatives the transfers decrease by roughly 8 percent.