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Mooted signals: economic disturbances and political budget cycles

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Abstract

Governments can finance fiscal expansions with debt to appear competent and boost their electoral prospects, resulting in a political budget cycle. This article shows that economic disturbances blur competence signals, dampening political budget cycles. Economic disturbances can be construed at the aggregate level as economic volatility which is a consequence of decisions taken by diverse economic actors. The more actors that are not elected at the national level have an impact on economic performance, the more difficult it will be for voters to disentangle government-specific competence shocks. Fiscal decentralisation increases policy leverage of governing bodies that are not elected at the national level; economic openness affects the number of foreign economic actors that cannot be held locally accountable. These two factors therefore limit voters’ ability to disentangle individual shocks to government competence, dampening strategic borrowing. The predictions receive empirical support from a time series-cross section analysis between 1980 and 2008.

Suggested Citation

  • Marek Hanusch, 2012. "Mooted signals: economic disturbances and political budget cycles," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 15, pages 189-212, November.
  • Handle: RePEc:cem:jaecon:v:15:y:2012:n:2:p:189-212
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    File URL: https://ucema.edu.ar/publicaciones/download/volume15/hanusch.pdf
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political business cycles 40 years after Nordhaus," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 235-259, January.
    2. Hanusch, Marek & Keefer, Philip, 2014. "Younger parties, bigger spenders? Party age and political budget cycles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-18.
    3. Antoine Cazals & Pierre Mandon, 2015. "Political Budget Cycles: Manipulation of Leaders or Bias from Research? A Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers halshs-01238883, HAL.
    4. Antoine CAZALS & Pierre MANDON, 2016. "Political Budget Cycles: Manipulation from Leaders or Manipulation from Researchers? Evidence from a Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers 201609, CERDI.
    5. Antoine Cazals & Pierre Mandon, 2016. "Political Budget Cycles: Manipulation from Leaders or Manipulation from Researchers? Evidence from a Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers halshs-01320586, HAL.
    6. Daniel Lema & Jorge M. Streb, 2013. "Ciclos electorales en política fiscal," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 514, Universidad del CEMA.
    7. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01291401, HAL.
    8. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Post-Print hal-01291401, HAL.
    9. García, Israel & Hayo, Bernd, 2021. "Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    10. Antoine Cazals & Pierre Mandon, 2015. "Political Budget Cycles: Manipulation of Leaders or Bias from Research? A Meta-Regression Analysis," CERDI Working papers halshs-01238883, HAL.
    11. Stéphane Goutte & David Guerreiro & Bilel Sanhaji & Sophie Saglio & Julien Chevallier, 2019. "International Financial Markets," Post-Print halshs-02183053, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    political budget cycles; economic volatility; fiscal decentralisation; economic openness;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design

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