We study the executive-legislative exchange of centrally-allocated and individually targeted benefits (jam) for legislative support in Colombia. We use data from road building contracts, roll-call votes, and a leaked document which allegedly revealed the secret assignment of road projects to specific legislators. We find that assigned projects were more expensive relative to similar non-assigned projects, legislators who appeared in the leak were more likely to be "swing" voters in the congress, and legislators increased their support for the president’s party after their assigned contracts were signed. The results are stronger for legislators representing remote regions, where political institutions are weaker.
