Replication Data for: County Over Party: How Governors Prioritized Geography Not Particularism in the Distribution of Opportunity Zones

Allocating resources is a central function of government, and the distributive politics literature provides considerable evidence of leaders across the world directing resources to co-partisan voters and officials. In the U.S., studies of “presidential particularism” have recently demonstrated strategic targeting by the federal executive branch. We extend the inquiry to states using an unusually rich case in which all governors simultaneously faced decisions about allocating a constrained resource—tax advantaged status for economic development—from an exogenously generated list of geographic possibilities. We test whether governors rewarded their supporters’ and allies’ areas alongside two alternatives: 1) spreading the wealth by geographic sub-units, and 2) policy need. We do not find evidence of gubernatorial particularism. We find that Republican and Democratic governors prioritized allocating opportunity zones geographically, and made efforts to designate at least one in each county. We also find responsiveness to policy need.资源分配是政府的核心职能之一，分配政治（distributive politics）领域的相关文献已提供大量实证证据，表明全球范围内的政治领导者均会将资源定向分配给同党派选民与公职人员。在美国，针对「总统特殊主义（presidential particularism）」的近期研究揭示了联邦行政部门的战略性资源定向分配行为。我们将研究范畴拓展至州级层面，采用了一个极为丰富的研究案例：所有州长同时面临一项受限资源的分配决策——为经济发展项目赋予税收优惠资格——该决策需从外部生成的地理候选清单中遴选适配对象。我们检验了州长是否会对其支持者与盟友所在地区进行奖励性分配，同时考量了两种替代分配逻辑：其一，按地理次级单元均衡分配资源；其二，契合政策需求。我们未发现州长特殊分配主义（gubernatorial particularism）的相关实证证据。研究结果显示，共和党与民主党州长均优先按地理维度划定机会特区（opportunity zones），并力求在每个县至少设立一处机会特区。同时，我们还发现州长的分配行为会对政策需求做出响应。