IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sie/siegen/120-05.html

Budget deficit, size of the public sector and majority voting

Author

Listed:
  • Jens Peter Siebel

Abstract

In this paper Tabellini’s and Alesina’s (1990) median voter model for the explanation of budget deficits is modified by endogenizing the private sector. Debt finance is supplemented by taxing a private consumption which serves as an additional source of revenue for funding the public sector. The introduction of the private sector enables us to explain the budget balance as a result of political polarization with a left-wing party and a right-wing party having different preferences for the size of the public sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Jens Peter Siebel, 2005. "Budget deficit, size of the public sector and majority voting," Volkswirtschaftliche Diskussionsbeiträge 120-05, Universität Siegen, Fakultät Wirtschaftswissenschaften, Wirtschaftsinformatik und Wirtschaftsrecht.
  • Handle: RePEc:sie:siegen:120-05
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.wiwi.uni-siegen.de/vwl/repec/sie/papers/120-05.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wagschal Uwe, 1998. "Politische und Institutionelle Determinanten der Staatsverschuldung," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 47(2), pages 220-248, August.
    2. David Martimort, 2001. "Optimal Taxation and Strategic Budget Deficit Under Political Regime Switching," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(3), pages 573-592.
    3. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    4. Tabellini, Guido & Alesina, Alberto, 1990. "Voting on the Budget Deficit," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 37-49, March.
    5. Torsten Persson & Lars E. O. Svensson, 1989. "Why a Stubborn Conservative would Run a Deficit: Policy with Time-Inconsistent Preferences," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(2), pages 325-345.
    6. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "The size and scope of government:: Comparative politics with rational politicians," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 699-735, April.
    7. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1995. "The Political Economy of Budget Deficits," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 42(1), pages 1-31, March.
    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. Marcela Eslava, 2011. "The Political Economy Of Fiscal Deficits: A Survey," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(4), pages 645-673, September.
    2. Pierre C. Boyer & Brian Roberson & Christoph Esslinger, 2024. "Public Debt and the Political Economy of Reforms," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 16(3), pages 459-491, August.
    3. Chiara Dalle Nogare, 2000. "I governi di coalizione sono tutti "fiscally irresponsible"? Un'indagine empirica con l'utilizzo della cluster analysis," Politica economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 1, pages 93-130.
    4. Alesina, A. & Passalacqua, A., 2016. "The Political Economy of Government Debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2599-2651, Elsevier.
    5. Padovano, Fabio & Venturi, Larissa, 2001. "Wars of Attrition in Italian Government Coalitions and Fiscal Performance: 1948-1994," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 109(1-2), pages 15-54, October.
    6. Pitsoulis, Athanassios & Siebel, Jens Peter, 2009. "Zur politischen Ökonomie von Defiziten und Kapitalsteuerwettbewerb," Discourses in Social Market Economy 2009-13, OrdnungsPolitisches Portal (OPO).
    7. Lloyd-Ellis, Huw & Zhu, Xiaodong, 2001. "Fiscal shocks and fiscal risk management," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 309-338, October.
    8. Salvatore Vassallo, 1998. "Le basi politico-istituzionali del rigore finanziario," Stato e mercato, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 433-468.
    9. Tyrefors Hinnerich, Björn, 2009. "Do merging local governments free ride on their counterparts when facing boundary reform?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(5-6), pages 721-728, June.
    10. Alberto F. Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1999. "Budget Deficits and Budget Institutions," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, pages 13-36, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Bartak, Jakub & Jabłoński, Łukasz & Tomkiewicz, Jacek, 2022. "Does income inequality explain public debt change in OECD countries?," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 211-224.
    12. Samuele Murtinu & Giulio Piccirilli & Agnese Sacchi, 2016. "Fiscal Policy, Government Polarization, and the Economic Literacy of Voters," Working papers 50, Società Italiana di Economia Pubblica.
    13. Velasco, Andres, 2000. "Debts and deficits with fragmented fiscal policymaking," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 105-125, April.
    14. Devereux, Michael B. & Wen, Jean-Francois, 1998. "Political instability, capital taxation, and growth," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(9), pages 1635-1651, November.
    15. Robert A.J. Dur & Ben D. Peletier & Otto H. Swank, 1997. "The Effect of Fiscal Rules on Public Investment if Budget Deficits are Politically Motivated," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 97-125/1, Tinbergen Institute.
    16. Feld, Lars P & Kirchgassner, Gebhard, 2001. "Does Direct Democracy Reduce Public Debt? Evidence from Swiss Municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 109(3-4), pages 347-370, December.
    17. Chatziantoniou, Ioannis & Duffy, David & Filis, George, 2013. "Stock market response to monetary and fiscal policy shocks: Multi-country evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 754-769.
    18. Goeminne Stijn & Smolders Carine, 2010. "Strategic Use of Debt in Flemish Municipalities," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-31, July.
    19. Millner, Antony & Ollivier, Hélène & Simon, Leo, 2014. "Policy experimentation, political competition, and heterogeneous beliefs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 84-96.
    20. Eslava, Marcela, 2006. "The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy: Survey," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 3343, Inter-American Development Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • H61 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Budget; Budget Systems
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus

    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:sie:siegen:120-05. 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: Michael Gail (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwsiede.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.