IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ipf/finteo/v37y2013i2p161-179.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of political institutions on the size of government spending in European Union member states and Croatia

Author

Listed:
  • Valentina Vuckovic

    (Institute for Development and International Relations, Zagreb, Croatia)

  • Martina Basarac Sertic

    (Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb, Croatia)

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of theoretical and empirical research on the interaction between political institutions and economic variables. Using the dynamic panel model, the paper also investigates the indirect effects of electoral systems on the size of general government spending. The analysis is performed on a panel dataset of 26 countries (25 member states of the European Union and Croatia) for the period between 1995 and 2010. The results show that government fragmentation and political stability affect the dynamics of budgetary expenditures in line with theoretical assumptions. Regarding the implications of this research for Croatia, it has been shown that a higher degree of government fragmentation leads to an increase in government spending which is a significant result since Croatia has generally had some form of coalition government.

Suggested Citation

  • Valentina Vuckovic & Martina Basarac Sertic, 2013. "The effect of political institutions on the size of government spending in European Union member states and Croatia," Financial Theory and Practice, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 37(2), pages 161-179.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipf:finteo:v:37:y:2013:i:2:p:161-179
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fintp.ijf.hr/upload/files/ftp/2013/2/vuckovic_basarec.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    political institutions; fiscal policy; electoral systems; government fragmentation; political competition; political stability;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory

    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:ipf:finteo:v:37:y:2013:i:2:p:161-179. 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: Martina Fabris (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ijfffhr.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.