Sending the Pork Home: Birth Town Bias in Transfers to Italian Municipalities

We ask whether the birthplaces of Italian members of Parliament are favoured in the allocation of central government transfers. Using a panel of municipalities for the years between 1994 and 2006, we find that municipal governments of legislators' birth towns receive larger transfers per capita. Exploiting the fact that some birth towns are outside of the district of election, we conclude that this result cannot be driven by re-election incentives. On the contrary, we show that these incentives discourage legislators from diverting resources to their birthplace. We present evidence that those transfers are a way for a politician to prepare the ground for a post-congressional career in the municipal administration. JEL Codes: H720, H770, D720.