Preventing competition because of “solidarity”: Rhetoric and reality of airport investments in Spain

Abstract

From a public interest perspective, there could be a justification for constraining market mechanisms with the aim of progressive redistribution. However, some policies might be based on selfish motivations of government agents. In this paper, we empirically contrast if the infrastructure policy is based only on public interest motivations or if it is also based on the private motivations of policy makers. In this way, Spain infrastructure policy provides a useful policymaking field to test hypothesis about the behavior of policy makers. We find some evidence regarding the strength of political motivations in explaining such behavior. In fact, results from our analysis show that political motivations can eventually play a more relevant role than social welfare maximization.