IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/idb/wpaper/idb-wp-427.html

The Economic Effects of Constitutions: Do Budget Institutions Make Forms of Government More Alike?

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Ardanaz
  • Carlos Scartascini

Abstract

According to an influential theoretical argument, presidential systems tend to present smaller governments because the separation between those who decide the size of the fiscal purse and those who allocate it creates incentives for lower public expenditures. In practice, forms of government vary greatly, and budget institutions -the rules according to which budgets are drafted, approved, and implemented- are one (of many) drivers of such variation. This paper argues that under more hierarchical budget rules, presidential and parliamentary systems generate a similar incentive structure for the executive branch in shaping the size of government. This hypothesis is tested on a broad cross-section of countries, presidentialism is found to have a negative impact on government size only when executive discretion in the budget process is low (that is, in a context of separation of powers). However, the negative effect of presidentialism on expenditures vanishes or is even reversed when the executive`s discretion over the budget process is higher. Hence, budget institutions that impose restrictions on the legislature`s ability to amend budget proposals can make political regimes look more alike in terms of fiscal outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Ardanaz & Carlos Scartascini, 2013. "The Economic Effects of Constitutions: Do Budget Institutions Make Forms of Government More Alike?," Research Department Publications IDB-WP-427, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:idb:wpaper:idb-wp-427
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.iadb.org/research/pub_hits.cfm?pub_id=38013280
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Bernard Steunenberg, 2021. "The politics within institutions for regulating public spending: conditional compliance within multi-year budgets," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 31-51, March.
    3. Luca Bettarelli & Michela Cella & Giovanna Iannantuoni & Elena Manzoni, 2021. "It’s a matter of confidence. Institutions, government stability and economic outcomes," Economia Politica: Journal of Analytical and Institutional Economics, Springer;Fondazione Edison, vol. 38(2), pages 709-738, July.
    4. Alaimo, Veronica & Cafagna, Gianluca & Elacqua, Gregory & Giles Álvarez, Laura & Izquierdo, Alejandro & Keefer, Philip & Martínez Von der Fecht, Matías & Vuletin, Guillermo & Moreno-Serra, Rodrigo & P, 2018. "Better Spending for Better Lives: How Latin America and the Caribbean Can Do More with Less," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 9152, November.
    5. Asatryan, Zareh & Castellón, César & Stratmann, Thomas, 2018. "Balanced budget rules and fiscal outcomes: Evidence from historical constitutions," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 105-119.
    6. Michela Cella & Giovanna Iannantuoni & Elena Manzoni, 2017. "Do the Right Thing: Incentives for Policy Selection in Presidential and Parliamentary Systems," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 84(335), pages 430-453, July.
    7. Mariano Tommasi & Germán Caruso & Carlos Scartascini, 2014. "Are We Playing the Same Game? The Economic Effects of Constitutions Depend on the Degree of Institutionalization," Working Papers 116, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Dec 2014.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation
    • H61 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Budget; Budget Systems

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:idb:wpaper:idb-wp-427. 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: Felipe Herrera Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iadbbus.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.