Earmarks and Rules

Determinants of the distribution of congressional earmarks across states
Melissa Boyle & Victor Matheson, Economics Letters, August 2009, Pages 63-65

Abstract: This paper examines pork-barrel spending within states and finds that per
capita earmarked funding is correlated with the inverse of a state's population, the presence of a Republican Congressional delegation, and the tenure of a state's senior Senator.

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Administrative Procedures and Bureaucratic Performance: Is Federal
Rule-making "Ossified"?
Jason Webb Yackee & Susan Webb Yackee, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, forthcoming

Abstract: We provide the first empirical assessment of the ossification thesis, the widely accepted notion that procedural constraints on federal agencies have greatly hindered the ability of those agencies to formulate policy through notice and comment rule-making. Using data that cover all active federal rule-writing agencies from 1983 to 2006, our results largely disconfirm the ossification thesis. Agencies appear readily able to issue a sizeable number of rules and to do so relatively quickly. Indeed, our empirical results suggest that procedural constraints may actually speed up the promulgation of rules, though our model suggests that this positive effect may decline, or even reverse, as proposed rules age. We conclude that procedural constraints do not appear to unduly interfere with the ability of federal agencies to act, or in most cases, to act in a timely manner.

(Nod to Kevin L, who always finds the coolest stuff)