Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Electoral Institutions, Cabinet Negotiations, and Budget Deficits in the European Union

Contents:

Author Info

  • Mark Hallerberg
  • Jurgen von Hagen

Abstract

A rough consensus has emerged that states with proportional representation systems are" likely to run larger deficits than plurality states. We argue that electoral institutions matter because" they restrict the type of budgetary institution at the governmental phase which a state has at its" disposal. Cabinet members may willingly delegate authority to a finance minister who can monitor" spending ministers and punish those who defect' in a process we label delegation procedure is feasible in states where one-party governments are the norm. Such states usually have" plurality electoral systems. In multi-party governments, which are common in states with" proportional representation, the coalition members are not willing to delegate to one actor the ability" to monitor and punish the others. Negotiated targets in the form of fiscal contracts provide an" alternative in multi-party governments. Pooled time series regression results for the current" European Union states in the period 1981-94 support our contention that it is the presence or absence" of one of these budgetary institutions, rather than the plurality/proportional representation" dichotomy, which has the greatest impact on debt levels.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6341.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 6341.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: Dec 1997
Date of revision:
Publication status: published as Mark Hallerberg, Jürgen von Hagen. "Electoral Institutions, Cabinet Negotiations, and Budget Deficits in the European Union," in James M. Poterba and Jürgen von Hagen, editors, "Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance" University of Chicago Press (1999)
Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6341

Note: PE
Contact details of provider:
Postal: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.
Phone: 617-868-3900
Email:
Web page: http://www.nber.org
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
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.:
as in new window
  1. repec:fth:eeccco:96 is not listed on IDEAS
  2. de Haan, Jakob & Sturm, Jan-Egbert, 1997. "Political and economic determinants of OECD budget deficits and government expenditures: A reinvestigation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 739-750, December.
  3. Tabellini, Guido & Alesina, Alberto, 1990. "Voting on the Budget Deficit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 37-49, March.
  4. repec:fth:coluec:754 is not listed on IDEAS
  5. Tabellini, Guido & Alesina, Alberto, 1990. "Voting on the Budget Deficit," Scholarly Articles 4553030, Harvard University Department of Economics.
  6. Alberto Alesina & Ricardo Hausmann & Rudolf Hommes & Ernesto Stein, 1996. "Budget Institutions and Fiscal Performance in Latin America," NBER Working Papers 5586, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Weingast, Barry R & Shepsle, Kenneth A & Johnsen, Christopher, 1981. "The Political Economy of Benefits and Costs: A Neoclassical Approach to Distributive Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 89(4), pages 642-64, August.
  8. von Hagen, Jurgen & Harden, Ian J., 1995. "Budget processes and commitment to fiscal discipline," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 771-779, April.
  9. Alesina, A. & Perotti, R., 1995. "Fiscal Expansions and Adjustments in OECD Countries," Discussion Papers 1995_25, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
  10. Edin, P-A. & Ohlsson, H., 1990. "Political Determinants Of Budget Deficits: Coalition Effects Versus Minority Effects," Papers 1990k, Uppsala - Working Paper Series.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:6341

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ().

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.