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Political Uncertainty, Public Expenditure and Growth

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  • Julia Darby
  • Chol-Won Li
  • Anton Muscatelli

Abstract

We focus on the link between political instability due to uncertain electoral outcomes and economic growth, through the impact on a government's decisions on how to allocate government expenditure between public consumption and investment. Using an endogenous growth model with partisan electoral effects, we demonstrate that political uncertainty will generate a steady-state equilibrium growth rate which is inefficient and too low. We also use a newly-constructed political data set to estimate panel regressions for several OECD economies over a period 1960-95. Our empirical evidence on the effects of political variables on tax and spending decisions supports our theoretical results.

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File URL: http://www.cesifo-group.de/portal/page/portal/DocBase_Content/WP/WP-CESifo_Working_Papers/wp-cesifo-2000/wp-cesifo-2000-07/cesifo_wp310.pdf
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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number 310.

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Date of creation: 2000
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Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_310

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Keywords: Endogenous growth; public consumption and investment; political uncertainty; panel regressions; OECD countries;

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References

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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. Bohn, Frank, 2007. "Polarisation, uncertainty and public investment failure," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 1077-1087, December.
  2. Fabrizio Carmignani, 2000. "Political Bias in Fiscal Policy Formation: an Econometric Analysis of Coalition Systems," Working Papers 28, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Dec 2000.
  3. Thaize Challier, M.-Christine, 2010. "Socio-political conflict, social distance, and rent extraction in historical perspective," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 51-67, March.
  4. Jon H. Fiva & Gisle James Natvik, 2009. "Do re-election probabilities influence public investment?," Working Papers 2009/36, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
  5. Fabrizio Carmignani, 2001. "Theory and Evidence on the Political Economy of Growth," Working Papers 33, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2001.
  6. Jong-A-Pin, Richard, 2009. "On the measurement of political instability and its impact on economic growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 15-29, March.
  7. Nigar Hashimzade & George Davis, 2006. "Human capital and growth under political uncertainty," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7.
  8. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:15:y:2006:i:1:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
  9. Ladislava Grochova & Ludek Kouba, 2011. "Is Elite Political Stability a Necessary Condition for Economic Growth? An Empirical Evidence from the Baltic States," MENDELU Working Papers in Business and Economics 2011-15, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics.
  10. Fabrizio Carmignani, 2001. "Political Data for Applied Political Economy Research," Working Papers 43, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Jul 2001.
  11. Fabrizio Carmignani, 2003. "Political Instability, Uncertainty and Economics," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17(1), pages 1-54, February.
  12. Aidt, Toke S. & Dutta, Jayasri, 2007. "Policy myopia and economic growth," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 734-753, September.
  13. Carmignani, Fabrizio, 2009. "The distributive effects of institutional quality when government stability is endogenous," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 409-421, December.

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