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Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization Advance Access originally published online on November 2, 2005
Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 2006 22(1):87-114; doi:10.1093/jleo/ewj001
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© The Author 2005. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Yale University. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Pork for Policy: Executive and Legislative Exchange in Brazil

Lee J. Alston

University of Colorado

Bernardo Mueller

Universidade de Brasília

Lee.Alston{at}colorado.edu

bmueller{at}unb.br

The Brazilian Constitution of 1988 gave relatively strong powers to the president. We model and test executive-legislative relations in Brazil and demonstrate that presidents have used pork as a political currency to exchange for votes on policy reforms. In particular Presidents Cardoso and Lula have used pork to exchange for amendments to the Constitution. Without policy reforms Brazil would have had greater difficulty meeting its debt obligations. The logic for the exchange of pork for policy reform is that presidents typically have greater electoral incentives than members of Congress to care about economic growth, economic opportunity, income equality, and price stabilization. Members of Congress generally care more about redistributing gains to their constituents. Given the differences in preferences and the relative powers of each, the legislative and executive branches benefit by exploiting the gains from trade.


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