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Temporal aggregation in political budget cycles

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  • Jorge M. Streb

    ()

  • Daniel Lema
  • Pablo Garofalo

Abstract

We build a panel with quarterly data from Latin American and OECD countries over the 1980–2005 period. Annual data strongly underestimate the effect of political budget cycles (PBCs) when a pre-electoral fiscal expansion is followed by a post-electoral contraction, since the effects cancel out in the calendar year of elections, but not in the four quarters up to elections. Quarterly data show there is a significant fiscal expansion in the four pre-electoral quarters that extends, perhaps, to the first post-electoral quarter. In the next three post-electoral quarters, there is a compensating fiscal contraction only in Latin America, so PBCs contributed to public debt build-up in the OECD. Our results contradict a widespread consensus on PBCs being only a developing country phenomena — a conclusion which might have been affected by temporal aggregation — and imply that studies of electoral cycles should be done from now on with quarterly, not annual, data.

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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by LACEA - LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION in its journal Journal of LACEA Economia.

Volume (Year): (2012)
Issue (Month): ()
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Handle: RePEc:col:000425:010031

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  1. Arellano, Manuel & Bond, Stephen, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," Review of Economic Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(2), pages 277-97, April.
  2. Susanne Lohmann, 1998. "Rationalizing the Political Business Cycle: A Workhorse Model," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 10(1), pages 1-17, 03.
  3. Brender, Adi & Drazen, Allan, 2005. "Political budget cycles in new versus established democracies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1271-1295, October.
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  5. Lorena Barberia & George Avelino, 2011. "Do political budget cycles differ in Latin American democracies?," Journal of LACEA Economia, LACEA - LATIN AMERICAN AND CARIBBEAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION.
  6. Jorge M. Streb & Daniel Lema & Gustavo Torrens, 2009. "Checks and Balances on Political Budget Cycles: Cross-Country Evidence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 426-447, 08.
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  8. Alt, James E. & Lassen, David Dreyer, 2006. "Fiscal transparency, political parties, and debt in OECD countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1403-1439, August.
  9. Jorge M. Streb & Gustavo F. Torrens, 2009. "Making rules credible: Divided government and political budget cycles," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 395, Universidad del CEMA.
  10. Kenneth Rogoff, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," NBER Working Papers 2428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  11. Shi, Min & Svensson, Jakob, 2006. "Political budget cycles: Do they differ across countries and why?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1367-1389, September.
  12. Fernandez, Roque B, 1981. "A Methodological Note on the Estimation of Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(3), pages 471-76, August.
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