| Abstract: |
Bachelor thesis Public Goods and the Local Populism deals with not very well explored area of political economics, which is called “pork barrel politics”. Pork barrel politics is the part of the budget process. During this part the public goods are distributed to the particular, geographically determined, projects, while costs are spread on the whole population through the tax. The work places emphasis on the political decision-making process that determines winning projects and also on the interest groups, which drive a hard bargain in the parliament and out of it. The first part of the work deals with the interest groups, with their classification and with the methods, which they use to enforce their interest (lobbying, rent-seeking and corruption). The second part concerns with the models of pork barrel politics in different institutional backgrounds and examines the efficiency of this process. Author comes to the conclusion that pork barrel politics is inefficient because it leads to the excessive spending. The work outlines the possibilities to increase the efficiency. The last chapter deals with the pork barrel politics in the Czech republic. |
