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Is there an election cycle in public employment? Separating time effects from election year effects

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  • Matz Dahlberg

    ()

    (Uppsala University, IFAU, CESifo & IEB)

  • Eva Mörk

    ()

    (Uppsala University, IFAU, CESifo, IZA & IEB)

Abstract

Do governments increase public employment in election years? This paper answers this question by using data from Sweden and Finland, two countries that are similar in many respects but in which local elections are held at different points in time. These facts make it possible for us to separate an election effect from other time effects. Our results indicate that there is a statistically significant election year effect in local public employment, a production factor that is highly visible in the welfare services provided by the local governments in the Scandinavian countries. The effect also seems to be economically significant; the municipalities employ 0.6 more full-time employees per 1,000 capita in election years than in other years (which correspond to an increase by approximately 1 percent).

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Paper provided by Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB) in its series Working Papers with number 2011/8.

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Length: 30 pages
Date of creation: 2011
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ieb:wpaper:2011/4/doc2011-8
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Keywords: election cycle; public employment; exogenous elections;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by 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
  • P16 - Economic Systems - - Capitalist Systems - - - Political Economy of Capitalism

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  7. Dahlberg, Matz & Edmark, Karin, 2004. "Is there a "Race-to-the-Bottom" in the Setting of Welfare Benefit Levels? Evidence from a Policy Intervention," Working Paper Series 2004:19, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
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Cited by:

  1. Mörk, Eva & Nordin, Mattias, 2016. "Voting, Taxes and Heterogeneous Preferences: Evidence from Swedish Local Elections," Working Paper Series 2016:5, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
  2. Aggeborn, Linuz, 2016. "Voter turnout and the size of government," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 29-40.
  3. Jon Fiva & Gisle James Natvik, 2010. "Do re-election probabilities influence public investment?," 2010 Meeting Papers 334, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  4. Dirk Foremny & Nadine Riedel, 2012. "Business taxes and the electoral cycle," Working Papers 2012/3, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
  5. Maria Teresa Balaguer-Coll & María Isabel Brun-Martos & Anabel Forte & Emili Tortosa-Ausina, 2014. "Determinants of local governments'­ reelection: New evidence based on a Bayesian approach," Working Papers 2014/06, Economics Department, Universitat Jaume I, Castellón (Spain).
  6. Eckardt, Sebastian & Mills, Zachary, 2014. "What goes up must come down -- cyclicality in public wage bill spending," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6760, The World Bank.
  7. Baskaran, Thushyanthan & Blesse, Sebastian & Brender, Adi & Reingewertz, Yaniv, 2015. "Revenue decentralization, central oversight and the political budget cycle: Evidence from Israel," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-046, ZEW - Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung / Center for European Economic Research.
  8. Labonne, Julien, 2016. "Local political business cycles: Evidence from Philippine municipalities," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 56-62.
  9. Al-Ississ, Mohamad & Atallah, Samer, 2015. "Patronage and ideology in electoral behavior: Evidence from Egypt's first presidential elections," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 241-248.

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