Abstract
Allocation decisions are vulnerable to political influence, but it is unclear in which situations politicians use their discretionary power in a partisan manner. We analyze the allocation of presidential disaster declarations in the United States, exploiting the spatiotemporal randomness of hurricane strikes from 1965-2018 along with changes in political alignment. We show that decisions are not biased when disasters are either very strong or weak, when relief provision is clearly necessary or not. Only in ambiguous situations, after medium-intensity hurricanes, do areas governed by presidents' co-partisans receive favorable treatment. This hump-shaped political bias explains 10 percent of total relief spending.
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