Kosher Pork

Both conventional wisdom and leading academic research view pork barrel spendingas antithetical to responsible policymaking in times of crisis. In this paper we presentan alternative view. When agents are heterogeneous in their ideology and in theirinformation about the economic situation, allocation of pork may enable passage oflegislation appropriate to a "crisis" that might otherwise not pass. Pork "greases thelegislative wheels" not by bribing legislators to accept legislation they view as harmful,but by conveying information about the necessity of policy change, where it may beimpossible to convey such information in the absence of pork. Pork may be used forthis function in situations where all legislators would agree to forgo pork under fullinformation. Moreover, pork will be observed when the public good is most valuableprecisely because it is valuable and the informed agenda setter wants to convey thisinformation.[...]