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Is there an election cycle in public employment? Separating time effects from election year effects

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  • Dahlberg, Matz

    () (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation)

  • Mörk, Eva

    () (IFAU - Institute for Labour Market Policy Evaluation)

Abstract

Do governments increase public employment in election years? This paper investigates this question by using data from Sweden and Finland, two countries that are similar in many respects but in which local elections are held at different points in time. We can thereby separate an election effect from other time effects. Our results indicate that there is a statistically significant election year effect in local public employment, a production factor that is highly visible in the welfare services provided by the local governments in the Scandinavian countries. The effect also seems to be economically significant; the municipalities employ 0.6 more full-time employees per 1,000 capita in election years than in other years (which correspond to an increase by approximately 1 percent).

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Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy in its series Working Paper Series with number 2008:3.

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Length: 25 pages
Date of creation: 10 Mar 2008
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:hhs:ifauwp:2008_003

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Phone: (+46) 18 - 471 70 70
Fax: (+46) 18 - 471 70 71
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Web page: http://www.ifau.se/
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Keywords: Election cycle; public employment; exogenous elections;

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References

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Cited by:
  1. Jon H. Fiva & Gisle James Natvik, 2009. "Do re-election probabilities influence public investment?," Working Papers 2009/36, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
  2. Dirk Foremny & Nadine Riedel, 2012. "Business Taxes and the Electoral Cycle," CESifo Working Paper Series 3729, CESifo Group Munich.

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