IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wdi/papers/2003-546.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Democratization???s Risk Premium: Partisan and Opportunistic Political Business Cycle Effects on Sovereign Ratings in Developing Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Steven Block
  • Burkhard N. Schrage
  • Paul M. Vaaler

Abstract

We use partisan and opportunistic political business cycle (???PBC???) considerations to develop a framework for explaining election-period decisions by credit rating agencies (???agencies???) publishing developing country sovereign risk-ratings (???ratings???). We test six hypotheses derived from the framework with 482 agency ratings for 19 countries holding 39 presidential elections from 1987-2000. We find that ratings are linked to the partisan orientation of incumbents facing election and to expectations of incumbent victory. Consistent with the framework, rating effects are sometimes greater for right-wing compared to left-wing incumbents, perhaps, because partisan PBC considerations with right-wing (left-wing) incumbents reinforce (counteract) opportunistic PBC considerations.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Block & Burkhard N. Schrage & Paul M. Vaaler, 2003. "Democratization???s Risk Premium: Partisan and Opportunistic Political Business Cycle Effects on Sovereign Ratings in Developing Countries," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 546, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    • Handle: RePEc:wdi:papers:2003-546
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39931/3/wp546.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Graciela Kaminsky & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2002. "Emerging Market Instability: Do Sovereign Ratings Affect Country Risk and Stock Returns?," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 16(2), pages 171-195, August.
    2. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1996. "Sovereign risk assessment and agency credit ratings," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 2(2), pages 247-256, July.
    3. Fair, Ray C, 1978. "The Effect of Economic Events on Votes for President," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 60(2), pages 159-173, May.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Nouriel Roubini, 1992. "Political Cycles in OECD Economies," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 59(4), pages 663-688.
    5. Alberto Alesina, 1988. "Macroeconomics and Politics," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1988, Volume 3, pages 13-62, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. William D. Nordhaus, 1989. "Alternative Approaches to the Political Business Cycle," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 20(2), pages 1-68.
    7. Gerry McNamara & Paul M Vaaler, 2000. "The Influence of Competitive Positioning and Rivalry on Emerging Market Risk Assessment," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 31(2), pages 337-347, June.
    8. Bachman, Daniel, 1992. "The effect of political risk on the forward exchange bias: the case of elections," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 208-219, April.
    9. Kenneth Rogoff & Anne Sibert, 1988. "Elections and Macroeconomic Policy Cycles," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(1), pages 1-16.
    10. World Bank, 2002. "World Development Indicators 2002," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 13921, December.
    11. Alberto Alesina, 1987. "Macroeconomic Policy in a Two-Party System as a Repeated Game," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(3), pages 651-678.
    12. Schuknecht, Ludger, 1999. "Fiscal policy cycles and the exchange rate regime in developing countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 15(3), pages 569-580, September.
    13. Pedro Santa‐Clara & Rossen Valkanov, 2003. "The Presidential Puzzle: Political Cycles and the Stock Market," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(5), pages 1841-1872, October.
    14. Alberto Alesina & Nouriel Roubini & Gerald D. Cohen, 1997. "Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262510944, December.
    15. Beck, Thorsten & Clarke, George & Groff, Alberto & Keefer, Philip & Walsh, Patrick, 2000. "New tools and new tests in comparative political economy - the database of political institutions," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2283, The World Bank.
    16. Guillermo Larraín & Helmut Reisen & Julia von Maltzan, 1997. "Emerging Market Risk and Sovereign Credit Ratings," OECD Development Centre Working Papers 124, OECD Publishing.
    17. Rogoff, Kenneth, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(1), pages 21-36, March.
    18. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1995. "Sovereign credit ratings," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 1(Jun).
    19. Block, Steven A. & Vaaler, Paul M., 2004. "The price of democracy: sovereign risk ratings, bond spreads and political business cycles in developing countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 917-946, October.
    20. Block, Steven A., 2002. "Political business cycles, democratization, and economic reform: the case of Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 67(1), pages 205-228, February.
    21. Richard Cantor & Frank Packer, 1996. "Determinants and impact of sovereign credit ratings," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 2(Oct), pages 37-53.
    22. William D. Nordhaus, 1975. "The Political Business Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(2), pages 169-190.
    23. Horrigan, Jo, 1966. "Determination Of Long-Term Credit Standing With Financial Ratios," Journal of Accounting Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 4, pages 44-62.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Block, Steven A., 2003. "Political conditions and currency crises in emerging markets," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 4(3), pages 287-309, September.
    2. Steven A. Block & Burkhard N. Schrage & Paul M. Vaaler, 2003. "DEMOCRACY’S SPREAD: Elections and Sovereign Debt in Developing Countries," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-575, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

    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. Block, Steven A. & Vaaler, Paul M., 2004. "The price of democracy: sovereign risk ratings, bond spreads and political business cycles in developing countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(6), pages 917-946, October.
    2. Steven A. Block & Burkhard N. Schrage & Paul M. Vaaler, 2003. "DEMOCRACY’S SPREAD: Elections and Sovereign Debt in Developing Countries," William Davidson Institute Working Papers Series 2003-575, William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.
    3. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01291401, HAL.
    4. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Post-Print hal-01291401, HAL.
    5. Kouvavas, Omiros, 2013. "Political Budget Cycles Revisited, the Case for Social Capital," MPRA Paper 57504, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Sep 2013.
    6. Vaaler, Paul M., 2006. "Electoral Politics and Foreign Project Investment in Developing Countries," Working Papers 06-0125, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    7. 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.
    8. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political business cycles 40 years after Nordhaus," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 235-259, January.
    9. Efthyvoulou, Georgios, 2011. "Political cycles under external economic constraints: Evidence from Cyprus," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 63(6), pages 638-662.
    10. Helene Ehrhart, 2013. "Elections and the structure of taxation in developing countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 156(1), pages 195-211, July.
    11. Troeger, Vera & Schneider, Christina J., 2012. "Strategic Budgeteering and Debt Allocation," CAGE Online Working Paper Series 85, Competitive Advantage in the Global Economy (CAGE).
    12. Ganesh Manjhi & Meeta Keswani Mehra, 2019. "Dynamics of Political Budget Cycle," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 5(1), pages 135-158, March.
    13. Foremny, Dirk & Freier, Ronny & Moessinger, Marc-Daniel & Yeter, Mustafa, 2014. "Overlapping political budget cycles in the legislative and the executive," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-099, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    14. Andrikopoulos, Andreas & Loizides, Ioannis & Prodromidis, Kyprianos, 2004. "Fiscal policy and political business cycles in the EU," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 125-152, March.
    15. Chrétien, Stéphane & Coggins, Frank, 2009. "Election outcomes and financial market returns in Canada," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(1), pages 1-23, March.
    16. Fabio Alvim Klein, 2014. "Do Opportunistic And Partisan Fiscalcycles Come Together?," Anais do XL Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 40th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 060, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    17. Bialkowski, Jedrzej & Gottschalk, Katrin & Wisniewski, Tomasz Piotr, 2008. "Stock market volatility around national elections," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(9), pages 1941-1953, September.
    18. Rebecca Hellerstein, 2007. "Is There a Dead Spot? New Evidence on FOMC Decisions Before Elections," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(6), pages 1411-1427, September.
    19. Khemani, Stuti, 2004. "Political cycles in a developing economy: effect of elections in the Indian States," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 73(1), pages 125-154, February.
    20. Klein, Fabio Alvim & Sakurai, Sergio Naruhiko, 2015. "Term limits and political budget cycles at the local level: evidence from a young democracy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 21-36.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economics; elections; developing countries; ratings;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G29 - Financial Economics - - Financial Institutions and Services - - - Other

    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:wdi:papers:2003-546. 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: WDI (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/wdumius.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.