IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/prg/jnlpep/v2012y2012i3id425p291-308.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Weber-Fechner Law and Public Expenditures Impact to the Win-Margins at Parliamentary Elections

Author

Listed:
  • Paulo Jorge Reis Mourao

Abstract

This paper discusses the electoral implications of psychological motivation on voting functions. We tested a claim of the Weber-Fechner law as applied to electoral behaviour - specifically, that an expanded public sector leads politicians to make more significant, opportunistic distortions of public expenditures than the distortions observed when the public sector is diminished. We employed a system of simultaneous equations to test this hypothesis for cases observed in more than sixty democracies since 1960. We gave a special focus to the cases of Central and Eastern European countries. Our results confirm the main implications of the Weber-Fechner law. Years in incumbency, running for re-election, higher unemployment and higher inflation rates tend to generate negative moods, feelings and affects in the electorate; thus, these factors tend to approximate the vote share of the most voted party to the remaining vote share of the challenger political forces.

Suggested Citation

  • Paulo Jorge Reis Mourao, 2012. "The Weber-Fechner Law and Public Expenditures Impact to the Win-Margins at Parliamentary Elections," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2012(3), pages 291-308.
    • Handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2012:y:2012:i:3:id:425:p:291-308
    DOI: 10.18267/j.pep.425
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://pep.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.pep.425.html
    Download Restriction: free of charge
    File URL: http://pep.vse.cz/doi/10.18267/j.pep.425.pdf
    Download Restriction: free of charge
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.18267/j.pep.425?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Akhmed Akhmedov & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2004. "Opportunistic Political Cycles: Test in a Young Democracy Setting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1301-1338.
    2. Shi, Min & Svensson, Jakob, 2006. "Political budget cycles: Do they differ across countries and why?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1367-1389, September.
    3. Barro, Robert J & Lee, Jong-Wha, 2001. "International Data on Educational Attainment: Updates and Implications," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 53(3), pages 541-563, July.
    4. Nannestad, Peter & Paldam, Martin, 1994. "The VP-Function: A Survey of the Literature on Vote and Popularity Functions after 25 Years," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 79(3-4), pages 213-245, June.
    5. Toke Aidt & Francisco Veiga & Linda Veiga, 2011. "Election results and opportunistic policies: A new test of the rational political business cycle model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 21-44, July.
    6. Adi Brender & Allan Drazen, 2007. "Electoral Fiscal Policy in New, Old, and Fragile Democracies," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 49(3), pages 446-466, September.
    7. Kinder, Donald R. & Kiewiet, D. Roderick, 1981. "Sociotropic Politics: The American Case," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(2), pages 129-161, April.
    8. Alt, James E. & Lassen, David Dreyer, 2006. "Fiscal transparency, political parties, and debt in OECD countries," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 50(6), pages 1403-1439, August.
    9. Kramer, Gerald H., 1983. "The Ecological Fallacy Revisited: Aggregate- versus Individual-level Findings on Economics and Elections, and Sociotropic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 92-111, March.
    10. William D. Nordhaus, 1975. "The Political Business Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(2), pages 169-190.
    11. Coates, Dennis, 1998. "Additional Incumbent Spending Really Can Harm (at Least Some) Incumbents: An Analysis of Vote Share Maximization," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 95(1-2), pages 63-87, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jakob Haan & Jeroen Klomp, 2013. "Conditional political budget cycles: a review of recent evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 387-410, December.
    2. Aidt, Toke S. & Mooney, Graham, 2014. "Voting suffrage and the political budget cycle: Evidence from the London Metropolitan Boroughs 1902–1937," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 53-71.
    3. Balaguer-Coll, Maria Teresa & Brun-Martos, María Isabel & Forte, Anabel & Tortosa-Ausina, Emili, 2015. "Local governments' re-election and its determinants: New evidence based on a Bayesian approach," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 94-108.
    4. Florian Dorn, 2021. "Elections and Government Efficiency," ifo Working Paper Series 363, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    5. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01291401, HAL.
    6. De Haan, Jakob & Ohnsorge, Franziska & Yu, Shu, 2023. "Election-induced fiscal policy cycles in emerging market and developing economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 18708, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Jeroen Klomp & Jakob Haan, 2013. "Political budget cycles and election outcomes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 245-267, October.
    8. García, Israel & Hayo, Bernd, 2021. "Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    9. Abel L. Costa Fernandes & Paulo R. Mota, 2013. "The Euro Zone Peripheral Countries’ Sovereign Debt Crisis: Also a Case of Non-Mature Democracies?," Panoeconomicus, Savez ekonomista Vojvodine, Novi Sad, Serbia, vol. 60(3), pages 291-310, May.
    10. Margarita Katsimi & Vassilis Sarantides, 2015. "Public investment and reelection prospects in developed countries," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 82(2), pages 471-500, October.
    11. Endrit Lami, 2023. "Political Budget Cycles in the Context of a Transition Economy: The Case of Albania," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 65(2), pages 221-262, June.
    12. Toke Aidt & Graham Mooney, 2014. "Voter suffrage and the political budget cycle: evidence from the London Metropolitan Boroughs 1902-1937," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1401, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    13. Georgios Efthyvoulou, 2012. "Political budget cycles in the European Union and the impact of political pressures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 295-327, December.
    14. George Petrakos & Konstantinos Rontos & Luca Salvati & Chara Vavoura & Ioannis Vavouras, 2022. "Toward a political budget cycle? Unveiling long-term latent paths in Greece," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3379-3394, October.
    15. Frank Bohn, 2018. "Political cycles: Beyond rational expectations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(10), pages 1-23, October.
    16. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political business cycles 40 years after Nordhaus," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 235-259, January.
    17. Furdas, Marina & Homolkova, Katerina & Kis-Katos, Krisztina, 2015. "Local Political Budget Cycles in a Federation: Evidence from West German Cities," IZA Discussion Papers 8798, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Post-Print hal-01291401, HAL.
    19. Marek Hanusch & Daniel Magleby, 2014. "Popularity, polarization, and political budget cycles," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 159(3), pages 457-467, June.
    20. Dalle Nogare, Chiara & Kauder, Björn, 2017. "Term limits for mayors and intergovernmental grants: Evidence from Italian cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-11.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    voting; Central and Eastern European economies; Weber-Fechner law;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D03 - Microeconomics - - General - - - Behavioral Microeconomics: Underlying Principles
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • P20 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:prg:jnlpep:v:2012:y:2012:i:3:id:425:p:291-308. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Stanislav Vojir (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/uevsecz.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.