A President of One's Own? Regional Favoritism in Latin America’s Federations

• In Event: Presidential Elections

Abstract

To what extent do presidents disproportionately favor their home state while in office? Do voters anticipate their behavior and vote accordingly? While there is some evidence supporting these phenomena, the mechanisms are not clear. First, presidents may deliberately favor their home state due to personal attachment or for sentimental reasons. Second, presidents may disproportionately recruit their collaborators from their home state, and these collaborators may be more vulnerable to lobbying efforts from the people that replaced them. Lastly, parties may nominate candidates from, and distribute more resources to, states they expect to be pivotal. We examine these possibilities with data from Latin America's three largest federations: Argentina (1983-2023), Brazil (1989-2023) and Mexico (1988-2024). We find that (a) both winning and losing candidates tend to overperform electorally in their home state, and (b) the president's home state is overrepresented in the cabinet, especially when (c) the president is a former governor. However, with some specific exceptions (d) the president's home state does not receive more (discretionary) transfers per capita from the central government, nor do (e) the home state's unemployment rate decrease during the president's tenure in office.

Authors

• Adrian Lucardi, ITAM

• Federico Lombisano, Vanderbilt University