IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/ecogov/v3y2002i2p153-170.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The flypaper effect and political strength

Author

Listed:
  • Per Tovmo
  • Torberg Falch

Abstract

Simple models of local government behavior predict equal effects of private income and unconditional federal grants on local government expenditures. Numerous empirical analyses, however, find that the effect of grants is larger than the income effect. We argue that this flypaper effect may be a result of weak political leaderships in multi–issue and multi–party decision–making environments. In multi–issue institutions, a strong political leadership may reduce inefficiency due to interest group influence and inter–party bargaining in the local council. Utilizing data for Norwegian local governments in the 1930s, we find that political strength reduces the size of the flypaper effect. When the local council consists of only one political party, we cannot reject absence of a flypaper effect, while the flypaper effect is large in fragmented local councils. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2002

Suggested Citation

  • Per Tovmo & Torberg Falch, 2002. "The flypaper effect and political strength," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 153-170, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:ecogov:v:3:y:2002:i:2:p:153-170
    DOI: 10.1007/s101010100036
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s101010100036
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s101010100036?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.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Bernardino Benito & María-Dolores Guillamón & Ana-María Ríos, 2017. "The electoral budget cycle on municipal waste collection expenditure," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(41), pages 4161-4179, September.
    2. Geys, Benny, 2006. "Government weakness and electoral cycles in local public debt: evidence from Flemish municipalities [Regierungsschwäche und Wahlzyklen in Zeiten kommunaler Verschuldung: das Beispiel flämischer Kom," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2006-06, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    3. Majid Maddah & Fozieh Jeyhoon-Tabar, 2016. "Studying the Flypaper Effect in the Provinces of Iran (2000-2013)," Iranian Economic Review (IER), Faculty of Economics,University of Tehran.Tehran,Iran, vol. 20(3), pages 339-354, Summer.
    4. Luigi Marattin & Tommaso Nannicini & Francesco Porcelli, 2022. "Revenue vs expenditure based fiscal consolidation: the pass-through from federal cuts to local taxes," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 29(4), pages 834-872, August.
    5. Lars Feld & Christoph Schaltegger, 2005. "Voters AS A Hard Budget Constraint: On the Determination of Intergovernmental Grants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 123(1), pages 147-169, April.
    6. Ma. Guillamón & Francisco Bastida & Bernardino Benito, 2013. "The electoral budget cycle on municipal police expenditure," European Journal of Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 447-469, December.
    7. Elena Gennari & Giovanna Messina, 2012. "How sticky are local expenditures in Italy? Assessing the relevance of the �flypaper effect� through municipal data," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 844, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. Vicente Rios & Miriam Hortas-Rico & Pedro Pascual, 2022. "What shapes the flypaper effect? The role of the political environment in the budget process," Local Government Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(5), pages 793-820, September.
    9. Santiago Lago-Peñas, 2008. "Local Governments' Asymmetric Reactions to Grants," Public Finance Review, , vol. 36(2), pages 219-242, March.
    10. Elena Gennari & Giovanna Messina, 2014. "How sticky are local expenditures in Italy? Assessing the relevance of the flypaper effect through municipal data," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 21(2), pages 324-344, April.
    11. Bernardino Benito & Francisco Bastida & Cristina Vicente, 2013. "Creating Room for Manoeuvre: a Strategy to Generate Political Budget Cycles under Fiscal Rules," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(4), pages 467-496, November.
    12. John Ashworth & Bruno Heyndels, 2005. "Government Fragmentation And Budgetary Policy In "Good" And "Bad" Times In Flemish Municipalities," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 17, pages 245-263, July.
    13. De Santo, Alessia & Le Maux, Benoît, 2023. "On the optimal size of legislatures: An illustrated literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    14. Torberg Falch & Bjarne Strøm, 2003. "Wage Bargaining and Political Strength in the Public Sector," Working Paper Series 3203, Department of Economics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Key words: flypaper effect; local public finance; political strength; JEL classification: D72; H72;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures

    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:spr:ecogov:v:3:y:2002:i:2:p:153-170. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.