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Tightening Tensions: Fiscal Policy and Civil Unrest in Eleven South American Countries, 1937 - 1995

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  • Joachim Voth

Abstract

Efforts at fiscal consolidation are often limited because of concerns over potential social unrest. From German austerity measures during the 1930s to the violent demonstrations in Greece in 2010, hard times have tended to go hand in hand with antigovernment violence. In this paper, I assemble cross-country evidence from eleven South American countries for the period 1937 to 1995 about the extent to which societies become unstable after budget cuts. The results show a clear positive correlation between austerity and instability. I examine the extent to which this relationship simply captures the fact that fiscal retrenchment and economic slumps are correlated, and conclude that this is not what is driving the effect. Finally, I test for interactions with various economic and political variables. While autocracies and democracies show a broadly similar response to budget cuts, countries with a history of stable institutions are less likely to see unrest as a result of austerity measures.

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Central Bank of Chile in its series Working Papers Central Bank of Chile with number 612.

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Date of creation: Feb 2011
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Handle: RePEc:chb:bcchwp:612

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Cited by:
  1. Francesco Passarelli & Guido Tabellini, 2013. "Emotions and Political Unrest," Working Papers 474, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
  2. Ponticelli, Jacopo & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2011. "Austerity and Anarchy: Budget Cuts and Social Unrest in Europe, 1919-2008," CEPR Discussion Papers 8513, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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