IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/jafrec/v28y2019i2p202-224..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Presidential term limits and fiscal policy in African countries

Author

Listed:
  • Urbain Thierry Yogo
  • Joseph Keneck Massil

Abstract

This paper assesses the effect of the attempt by an incumbent to amend the section of the constitution related to the presidential term limits on fiscal policy. Specifically, we test the hypothesis that the process of modifying the constitution to run for a third term leads the incumbent to increase government spending as a tool for political patronage. Using a sample of 30 African countries over the period 1990–2010, our findings indicate an increase in government spending during the term in which the constitution was amended. In addition, we find evidence of the exacerbation of the political budget cycle during periods of expansion. However, this effect is not robust to alternative estimation strategies, including matching techniques. From the policy perspective, this study suggests that it is worth watching out not only for elections but also for constitutional changes that are a catalyst of fiscal indiscipline and can further weaken institutions that are positively correlated with countercyclical fiscal policies.

Suggested Citation

  • Urbain Thierry Yogo & Joseph Keneck Massil, 2019. "Presidential term limits and fiscal policy in African countries," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 28(2), pages 202-224.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:28:y:2019:i:2:p:202-224.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jae/ejy021
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Désiré Avom & Itchoko M. M. Mwa Ndjokou & Pierre C. Tsopmo & Cherif Abdramane & Simplice A. Asongu, 2024. "Duration in Power and Happiness in the World," Working Papers of the African Governance and Development Institute. 24/033, African Governance and Development Institute..
    2. Adalbert Abraham Ghislain Melingui Bate, 2020. "The effect of education on voter's turnout in african presidential elections," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(2), pages 1607-1622.

    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:oup:jafrec:v:28:y:2019:i:2:p:202-224.. 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: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/csaoxuk.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.