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Political budget cycles and reelection prospects in Greece's municipalities

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  • Chortareas, Georgios
  • Logothetis, Vasileios
  • Papandreou, Andreas A.

Abstract

This paper considers the presence of political budget cycles in Greece's municipalities. We construct a new dataset from primary sources and we find strong evidence of pre-electoral manipulation through increased expenditures and excessive borrowing. We use a dynamic panel data approach producing evidence of opportunistic behavior in local government finances. Our results are robust in the face of a series of controls including mayors running for reelection, their political alignment with the central government, and prolonged terms. Moreover, the results are robust to the exclusion of small sized municipalities and to the restriction of the time range of our investigation to the post-Maastricht period. We also consider whether opportunistic policies influence incumbents' reelection prospects finding that increased expenditures and election year opportunistic excesses are electorally rewarding. Our findings provide a characterization of opportunistic public finance management in Greek municipalities where electorally motivated budgetary decisions appear impervious to the various municipal reform attempts.

Suggested Citation

  • Chortareas, Georgios & Logothetis, Vasileios & Papandreou, Andreas A., 2016. "Political budget cycles and reelection prospects in Greece's municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-13.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:43:y:2016:i:c:p:1-13
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2016.02.001
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    Cited by:

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    2. Chortareas, Georgios & Logothetis, Vassilis & Papandreou, Andreas, 2018. "Public Opinion, Elections, and Environmental Fiscal Policy," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2018/9, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    3. Silva-Escobar, Daniel, 2022. "Conducta electoral oportunista y determinantes económicos de la reelección de alcaldes/as en Chile," Documentos de Trabajo 10, Estudios Nueva Economía.
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    8. Cahan, Dodge, 2019. "Electoral cycles in government employment: Evidence from US gubernatorial elections," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 122-138.
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    10. Ziogas, Thanasis & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2021. "Revisiting the political economy of fiscal adjustments," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    11. Castro, Vítor & Martins, Rodrigo, 2018. "Politically driven cycles in fiscal policy: In depth analysis of the functional components of government expenditures," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 44-64.
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    13. García, Israel & Hayo, Bernd, 2021. "Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
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    16. Clark Granger-Castaño & Yurany Hernández-Turca & Carlos Murcia-Bustos & Lisseth Yaya-Garzón, 2018. "Ciclo político en las finanzas de los gobiernos regionales de Colombia 1998-2014," Borradores de Economia 1044, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    17. Bernardino Benito & María-Dolores Guillamón & Ana-María Ríos, 2021. "Political Budget Cycles in Public Revenues: Evidence From Fines," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(4), pages 21582440211, November.
    18. Jordi Sanjuán & Pau Rausell & Vicente Coll & Raül Abeledo, 2020. "Mayors, Using Cultural Expenditure in An Opportunistic Way Improves the Chances of Re-Election, but Do Not Do It: Revisiting Political Budget Cycles," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-15, October.
    19. Stefanie Vanneste & Stijn Goeminne, 2020. "The role of the past in public policy: empirical evidence of the long-term effect of past policy and politics on the local budget balance," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 21(1), pages 75-99, March.
    20. Resce, Giuliano, 2022. "Political and Non-Political Officials in Local Government," Economics & Statistics Discussion Papers esdp22079, University of Molise, Department of Economics.
    21. Aaskoven, Lasse, 2018. "Polity age and political budget cycles: Evidence from a Danish municipal reform," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 75-84.
    22. Salvador Traettino, 2022. "Migración forzada y finanzas públicas locales: Evidencia de los municipios en Colombia," Documentos CEDE 020335, Universidad de los Andes – Facultad de Economía – CEDE.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political budget cycles; Reelection; Municipalities; Greece; Panel data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H7 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

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