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Partisan Preferences and Political Institutions: Explaining Fiscal Retrenchment in the European Union

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  • Oliver Pamp

    (Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, Free University Berlin)

Abstract

This paper endeavours to illuminate the political and institutional factors that can help explain differing degrees of fiscal retrenchment in European Union countries for the time period 1990-2001. Several variants of the partisan approach and the veto players framework are elucidated and applied to the question of budgetary consolidation. These elaborations yield five working hypotheses which are empirically tested using a time-series cross-section data set of 14 EU countries. The results lend support to the notion that partisan preferences and institutional veto players interact budgetary retrenchment in a rather counterintuitive way.

Suggested Citation

  • Oliver Pamp, 2008. "Partisan Preferences and Political Institutions: Explaining Fiscal Retrenchment in the European Union," European Political Economy Review, European Political Economy Infrastructure Consortium, vol. 8(Spring), pages 4-39.
    • Handle: RePEc:epe:journl:v:8:y:2008:i:spring:p:4-39
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    2. Blavoukos, Spyros & Pagoulatos, George, 2008. "Fiscal adjustment in Southern Europe: the limits of EMU conditionality," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 5607, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    3. Matthias Bauer, 2013. "Political Aversion To a Multilateral Fiscal Rule: The Dynamic Commitment Problem in European Fiscal Governance," Global Financial Markets Working Paper Series 44-2013, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Deficits; Fiscal Adjustment; Partisan Models; Veto Player Models; Binary Time-Series Cross-Section Models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E63 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • K00 - Law and Economics - - General - - - General (including Data Sources and Description)
    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

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