Electoral Rules, Forms of Government, and Political Budget Cycles in Transition Countries Abstract: Recent studies have suggested the existence of election-year economics in fiscal policy in transition countries. This study asks whether such electoral cycles in aggregate measures (overall expenditures, revenues and balance) and spending composition (broad vs. targeted outlays) differ among countries with different political systems. This question is motivated by a sharp division between majoritarianpresidential systems in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and proportional-parliamentary systems in the Baltics, Central and Southeastern Europe. Further, in the absence of context-sensitive theories, the paper asks whether observed outcomes in the transition process conform to the theoretical priors developed for conditions in stable democracies. Finally, the paper attempts to normatively establish whether either of the alternative combinations yields more optimal policy outcomes. The results suggest that the differences indeed exist, primarily on the revenue side and in the composition of expenditures. These results differ markedly from those for stable democracies, especially in the case of composition of spending. Normatively, presidentialism yields suboptimal outcomes in comparison to parliamentarianism, likely due to inefficient system of constitutionally intended checks and balances
Marko Klasnja () (Peterson Institute for International Economics, USA)
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Paper provided by Faculty of economics, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers with number
200824.
Length: 33 pages Date of creation: Nov 2007 Date of revision:
Jun 2008 Publication status: Published in Panoeconomicus, June 2008, pages 185-218 Handle: RePEc:voj:wpaper:200824
Find related papers by JEL classification: D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy-Making and Implementation E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy P26 - Economic Systems - - Socialist Systems and Transition Economies - - - Political Economy P52 - Economic Systems - - Comparative Economic Systems - - - Comparative Studies of Particular Economies
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