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Is the Political Business Cycle for Real?

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Author Info
S. Brock Blomberg
Gregory Hess ()

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Abstract

This paper constructs and examines a macroeconomic model which combines features from both real and political business cycle models. We augment a standard real business cycle tax model by allowing for varying levels of government partisanship and competence in order to replicate two important empirical regularities: First, that on average the economy expands early under Democratic Presidents and contracts early under Republican Presidents. Second, that Presidents whose parties successfully retain the presidency have stronger than average growth in the second half of their terms. The model generates both of these features that conform to U.S. Post World War II data.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by CESifo Group Munich in its series CESifo Working Paper Series with number CESifo Working Paper No. 415.

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Date of creation: 2001
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Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_415

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Related research
Keywords: Political business cycle;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H10 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - General
H50 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - General
H80 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - General

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  1. Edward C. Prescott, 1986. "Theory ahead of business cycle measurement," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Fall, pages 9-22. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Faust, Jon & Irons, John S., 1999. "Money, politics and the post-war business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1), pages 61-89, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Plosser, Charles I, 1989. "Understanding Real Business Cycles," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 51-77, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  4. Baxter, Marianne & King, Robert G, 1993. "Fiscal Policy in General Equilibrium," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 315-34, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Kenneth Rogoff & Anne Sibert, 1988. "Elections and Macroeconomic Policy Cycles," NBER Working Papers 1838, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Kuehlwein, Michael, 1998. "Evidence on the substitutability between government purchases and consumer spending within specific spending categories," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 325-329, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1991. "Productive externalities and business cycles," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 53, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
  8. Bizer, David S. & Durlauf, Steven N., 1990. "Testing the positive theory of government finance," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 123-141, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Hansen, Gary D., 1985. "Indivisible labor and the business cycle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 309-327, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. Alesina, A. & Londregan, J.A. & Rosenthal, H., 1990. "A Model Of The Political Economy Of The United States," GSIA Working Papers 1990-27, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
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  11. Nordhaus, William D, 1975. "The Political Business Cycle," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(2), pages 169-90, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. McGrattan, Ellen R., 1994. "The macroeconomic effects of distortionary taxation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(3), pages 573-601, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Blomberg, S. Brock & Hess, Gregory D., 1997. "Politics and exchange rate forecasts," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(1-2), pages 189-205, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  14. Seater, John J., 1985. "On the construction of marginal federal personal and social security tax rates in the U.S," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 121-135, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  15. Hess, Gregory D & Iwata, Shigeru, 1997. "Measuring and Comparing Business-Cycle Features," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(4), pages 432-44, October.
  16. Ni, Shawn, 1995. "An empirical analysis on the substitutability between private consumption and government purchases," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 593-605, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  17. Ball, Laurence & Mankiw, N. Gregory, 1994. "A sticky-price manifesto," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 127-151, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Hess, Gregory D & Orphanides, Athanasios, 1995. "War Politics: An Economic, Rational-Voter Framework," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(4), pages 828-46, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Barro, Robert J, 1990. "Government Spending in a Simple Model of Endogenous Growth," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(5), pages S103-26, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Robert J. Barro, 1981. "On the Predictability of Tax-Rate Changes," NBER Working Papers 0636, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  21. Hall, Robert E, 1988. "The Relation between Price and Marginal Cost in U.S. Industry," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(5), pages 921-47, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  22. Fair, Ray C, 1996. "Econometrics and Presidential Elections," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 10(3), pages 89-102, Summer. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. Cogley, Timothy & Nason, James M, 1995. "Output Dynamics in Real-Business-Cycle Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 492-511, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  24. S. Brock Blomberg & Gerald D. Cohen, 1994. "Scoring political economy models: a multiple equilibrium approach," Research Paper 9410, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  25. Alesina, Alberto & Tabellini, Guido, 1990. "A Positive Theory of Fiscal Deficits and Government Debt," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 57(3), pages 403-14, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  26. Ludvigson, Sydney, 1996. "The macroeconomic effects of government debt in a stochastic growth model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 25-45, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  27. Ellen R. McGrattan, 1994. "A progress report on business cycle models," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Fall, pages 2-16. [Downloadable!]
  28. Jon Faust & John Irons, 1996. "Money, politics and the post-war business cycle," International Finance Discussion Papers 572, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  29. King, Robert G. & Plosser, Charles I. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1988. "Production, growth and business cycles : I. The basic neoclassical model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 21(2-3), pages 195-232. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Robert Grafstein & Kiki Caruson, 2008. "Surprise party," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 315-328, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Burton Abrams & Plamen Iossifov, 2006. "Does the Fed Contribute to a Political Business Cycle?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 129(3), pages 249-262, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Boutchkov, Maria & Doshi, Hitesh & Durnev, Art & Molchanov, Alexander, 2008. "Politics and Volatility," CEI Working Paper Series 2008-10, Center for Economic Institutions, Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University. [Downloadable!]
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