IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/eeupol/v5y2004i4p467-493.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Voting against Spending Cuts

Author

Listed:
  • Carlos Mulas-Granados

    (Complutense University of Madrid, Spain)

Abstract

This article analyses the electoral consequences of fiscal adjustments for the governments that implement them. Using probit analysis on a panel of 15 EU member states between 1960 and 2000, this article tests whether an improving budgetary situation has any effect on the probability of prime minister re-election. Contrary to what previous influential studies concluded, results from this article confirm that governments are held accountable for their fiscal policy decisions. In Europe, the probability of the prime minister’s re-election decreases when fiscal adjustments have taken place, especially if these consolidations relied on spending cuts. Nevertheless, the strong electoral costs associated with expenditure-based adjustments weakened during the post-Maastricht years. The reason for this was partly a change in voters’ tolerance of fiscal discipline and partly because public opinion put the blame on ‘Brussels’ for the strongest budget cuts.

Suggested Citation

  • Carlos Mulas-Granados, 2004. "Voting against Spending Cuts," European Union Politics, , vol. 5(4), pages 467-493, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:eeupol:v:5:y:2004:i:4:p:467-493
    DOI: 10.1177/1465116504047313
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1465116504047313
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1465116504047313?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roubini, Nouriel & Sachs, Jeffrey D., 1989. "Political and economic determinants of budget deficits in the industrial democracies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 903-933, May.
    2. Lowry, Robert C. & Alt, James E. & Ferree, Karen E., 1998. "Fiscal Policy Outcomes and Electoral Accountability in American States," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 92(4), pages 759-774, December.
    3. Kramer, Gerald H., 1983. "The Ecological Fallacy Revisited: Aggregate- versus Individual-level Findings on Economics and Elections, and Sociotropic Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 92-111, March.
    4. Bornier Jean Magnan de & Norpoth H. & Lewis-Beck M.S. & Lafay J.D., 1991. "Economics and Politics The calculus of support," Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, De Gruyter, vol. 2(4), pages 579-581, December.
    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. Filippov, Mikhail G, 2002. "Russian Voting and the Initial Economic Shock of Hyperinflation," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 111(1-2), pages 73-104, March.
    2. E Goulas & C Kallandranis & A Zervoyianni, 2019. "Voting Behaviour and the Economy: Evidence from Greece," Economic Issues Journal Articles, Economic Issues, vol. 24(1), pages 35-58, March.
    3. Gebhard Kirchgässner, 2016. "Voting and Popularity," CREMA Working Paper Series 2016-08, Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).
    4. Geys, Benny & Vermeir, Jan, 2008. "The political cost of taxation: new evidence from German popularity ratings [Besteuerung und Popularität von Politikern: Neue Ergebnisse für die Deutsche Bundesregierung 1978-2003]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2008-06, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    5. Peter Calcagno & Monica Escaleras, 2007. "Party alternation, divided government, and fiscal performance within US States," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 8(2), pages 111-128, February.
    6. Michael Lewis-Beck & Mary Stegmaier, 2013. "The VP-function revisited: a survey of the literature on vote and popularity functions after over 40 years," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 367-385, December.
    7. Adi Brender & Allan Drazen, 2005. "How Do Budget Deficits and Economic Growth Affect Reelection Prospects? Evidence from a Large Cross-Section of Countries," NBER Working Papers 11862, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen & David Skilling, 2001. "Fiscal Transparency, Gubernatorial Popularity, and the Scale of Government: Evidence from the States," EPRU Working Paper Series 01-16, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    9. Áron Kiss, 2009. "Coalition politics and accountability," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 139(3), pages 413-428, June.
    10. Hyungon Kim & Chang Kwon, 2015. "The Effects of Fiscal Consolidation and Welfare Composition of Spending on Electoral Outcomes: Evidence from US Gubernatorial Elections between 1978 and 2006," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 228-253, April.
    11. Hibbs Jr., Douglas A., 2004. "Voting and the Macroeconomy," Working Papers in Economics 144, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics, revised 08 Apr 2006.
    12. Nannestad, Peter & Paldam, Martin, 1997. "The grievance asymmetry revisited: A micro study of economic voting in Denmark,1986-1992," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 13(1), pages 81-99, February.
    13. Kausik Chaudhuri & Sugato Dasgupta, 2005. "The political determinants of central governments' economic policies in India: an empirical investigation," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 17(7), pages 957-978.
    14. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 2002. "Political economics and public finance," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 24, pages 1549-1659, Elsevier.
    15. Torsten Persson & Guido Tabellini, "undated". "Political Institutions and Policy Outcomes: What are the Stylized Facts?," Working Papers 189, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    16. Jason Barabas, 1998. "Wage Erosion, Economic Assessments, and Social Welfare Opinions," JCPR Working Papers 56, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    17. Dreher, Axel & Fuchs, Andreas & Langlotz, Sarah, 2019. "The effects of foreign aid on refugee flows," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 127-147.
    18. Hibbs, Douglas A, Jr, 2000. "Bread and Peace Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 104(1-2), pages 149-180, July.
    19. Padovano, Fabio & Petrarca, Ilaria, 2014. "Are the responsibility and yardstick competition hypotheses mutually consistent?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 459-477.
    20. Andrea Baranzini & Stefano Carattini & Linda Tesauro, 2021. "Designing Effective and Acceptable Road Pricing Schemes: Evidence from the Geneva Congestion Charge," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 79(3), pages 417-482, July.

    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:sae:eeupol:v:5:y:2004:i:4:p:467-493. 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: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    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.