UNIVERSALISM AND THE VALUE OF POLITICAL POWER

Although legislatures typically use majority rule to allocate a budget in distributive legislation, unanimous consent over the broad allocation of benefits is pervasive. I develop a game-theoretic model where members strategically interact in a universal coalition to determine allocations, with noncooperative bargaining as a threat point for the breakdown of cooperation. To quantify the effects of political power on the agreed-upon allocation, I structurally estimate the model using the “Bridge Bill Capital Budget” in 1992. I find that 16.73% of the budget would be allocated differently if allocations were determined only based on actual needs.