IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cdf/wpaper/2018-9.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Public Opinion, Elections, and Environmental Fiscal Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Chortareas, Georgios

    (King's College London and National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)

  • Logothetis, Vassilis

    (Cardiff Business School)

  • Papandreou, Andreas

    (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens)

Abstract

We investigate how public opinion along with the electoral process affect the strength of environmental fiscal policies in the European Union (EU). Our analysis accounts for a set of economic, institutional, and political factors that can affect environmental taxes and expenditures. We pursue a dynamic panel data analysis covering 27 EU countries using public opinion data. We produce evidence showing that public concern for the environment, as gauged by opinion surveys, positively affects environmental protection expenditures, while elections negatively affect environmental tax revenues and environmental protection expenditures shrink in the aftermath of elections. We do not find evidence of partisan effects. The effect of public opinion and elections on environment-related fiscal decisions depends on the degree of integration with the global economy as well as several institutional factors including the level of corruption and the soundness of the rule of law. We also document that the results are impervious to a wide set of robustness tests.

Suggested Citation

  • Chortareas, Georgios & Logothetis, Vassilis & Papandreou, Andreas, 2018. "Public Opinion, Elections, and Environmental Fiscal Policy," Cardiff Economics Working Papers E2018/9, Cardiff University, Cardiff Business School, Economics Section.
    • Handle: RePEc:cdf:wpaper:2018/9
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://carbsecon.com/wp/E2018_9.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Post-Print hal-01291401, HAL.
    2. Adam J. Newmark & Christopher Witko, 2007. "Pollution, Politics, and Preferences for Environmental Spending in the States," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 24(4), pages 291-308, July.
    3. Brender, Adi & Drazen, Allan, 2005. "Political budget cycles in new versus established democracies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(7), pages 1271-1295, October.
    4. Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2004. "Trade, Growth, and the Environment," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 42(1), pages 7-71, March.
    5. López, Ramón & Galinato, Gregmar I. & Islam, Asif, 2011. "Fiscal spending and the environment: Theory and empirics," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 180-198, September.
    6. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political business cycles 40 years after Nordhaus," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 235-259, January.
    7. David M. Konisky & Neal D. Woods, 2012. "Measuring State Environmental Policy," Review of Policy Research, Policy Studies Organization, vol. 29(4), pages 544-569, July.
    8. Potrafke, Niklas, 2010. "The growth of public health expenditures in OECD countries: Do government ideology and electoral motives matter?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(6), pages 797-810, December.
    9. Werner Antweiler & Brian R. Copeland & M. Scott Taylor, 2001. "Is Free Trade Good for the Environment?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(4), pages 877-908, September.
    10. Dimiter Toshkov, 2011. "Public opinion and policy output in the European Union: A lost relationship," European Union Politics, , vol. 12(2), pages 169-191, June.
    11. Ramón López & Amparo Palacios, 2014. "Why has Europe Become Environmentally Cleaner? Decomposing the Roles of Fiscal, Trade and Environmental Policies," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 58(1), pages 91-108, May.
    12. Jakob Haan & Jeroen Klomp, 2013. "Conditional political budget cycles: a review of recent evidence," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(3), pages 387-410, December.
    13. Eric Dubois, 2016. "Political Business Cycles 40 Years after Nordhaus," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) hal-01291401, HAL.
    14. Chortareas, Georgios & Logothetis, Vasileios & Papandreou, Andreas A., 2016. "Political budget cycles and reelection prospects in Greece's municipalities," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 1-13.
    15. de Haan, Jakob & Sturm, Jan-Egbert, 1994. "Political and Institutional Determinants of Fiscal Policy in the European Community," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 80(1-2), pages 157-172, July.
    16. Axel Dreher & Jan-Egbert Sturm & Heinrich Ursprung, 2008. "The impact of globalization on the composition of government expenditures: Evidence from panel data," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 134(3), pages 263-292, March.
    17. George J. Stigler, 1971. "The Theory of Economic Regulation," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 2(1), pages 3-21, Spring.
    18. Bjørnskov, Christian, 2005. "Political Ideology and Economic Freedom," Working Papers 05-8, University of Aarhus, Aarhus School of Business, Department of Economics.
    19. Shi, Min & Svensson, Jakob, 2006. "Political budget cycles: Do they differ across countries and why?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(8-9), pages 1367-1389, September.
    20. Tujula, Mika & Wolswijk, Guido, 2004. "What determines fiscal balances? An empirical investigation in determinants of changes in OECD budget balances," Working Paper Series 422, European Central Bank.
    21. Fredriksson, Per G., 1997. "The Political Economy of Pollution Taxes in a Small Open Economy," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 44-58, May.
    22. John A. List & Daniel M. Sturm, 2006. "How Elections Matter: Theory and Evidence from Environmental Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1249-1281.
    23. 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.
    24. Woo, Jaejoon, 2003. "Economic, political, and institutional determinants of public deficits," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(3-4), pages 387-426, March.
    25. Niklas Potrafke, 2009. "Did globalization restrict partisan politics? An empirical evaluation of social expenditures in a panel of OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 105-124, July.
    26. Benoît Le Maux, 2009. "Governmental behavior in representative democracy: a synthesis of the theoretical literature," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 141(3), pages 447-465, December.
    27. Everaert, Gerdie & Pozzi, Lorenzo, 2007. "Bootstrap-based bias correction for dynamic panels," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1160-1184, April.
    28. Aidt, Toke S., 1998. "Political internalization of economic externalities and environmental policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 1-16, July.
    29. Maizels, Alfred & Nissanke, Machiko K., 1986. "The determinants of military expenditures in developing countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 14(9), pages 1125-1140, September.
    30. Halkos, George E. & Paizanos, Epameinondas Α., 2013. "The effect of government expenditure on the environment:An empirical investigation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 48-56.
    31. Jeroen Klomp & Jakob Haan, 2013. "Political budget cycles and election outcomes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 157(1), pages 245-267, October.
    32. Bouwe R. Dijkstra, 1999. "The Political Economy of Environmental Policy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 1636.
    33. Axel Dreher, 2006. "Does globalization affect growth? Evidence from a new index of globalization," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(10), pages 1091-1110.
    34. Ignace De Vos & Gerdie Everaert & Ilse Ruyssen, 2015. "Bootstrap-based bias correction and inference for dynamic panels with fixed effects," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 15(4), pages 986-1018, December.
    35. Edward B. Barbier, 2010. "Green Stimulus, Green Recovery and Global Imbalances," World Economics, World Economics, 1 Ivory Square, Plantation Wharf, London, United Kingdom, SW11 3UE, vol. 11(2), pages 149-177, April.
    36. Zijun Wang, 2009. "The determinants of health expenditures: evidence from US state-level data," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(4), pages 429-435.
    37. Hélia Costa, 2016. "Pork barrel as a signaling tool: the case of US environmental policy," GRI Working Papers 225, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    38. Maloney, Michael T & McCormick, Robert E, 1982. "A Positive Theory of Environmental Quality Regulation," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 25(1), pages 99-123, April.
    39. Richard T. Carson, 2010. "The Environmental Kuznets Curve: Seeking Empirical Regularity and Theoretical Structure," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 4(1), pages 3-23, Winter.
    40. Neal D. Woods, 2008. "The Policy Consequences of Political Corruption: Evidence from State Environmental Programs," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 89(1), pages 258-271, March.
    41. Mueller,Dennis C., 2003. "Public Choice III," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521894753, September.
    42. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen, 2006. "Transparency, Political Polarization, and Political Budget Cycles in OECD Countries," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 50(3), pages 530-550, July.
    43. Gary S. Becker, 1983. "A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 371-400.
    44. Concetta Castiglione & Davide Infante & Maria Teresa Minervini & Janna Smirnova, 2014. "Environmental taxation in Europe: What does it depend on?," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 1-8, 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. Florian Haelg & Niklas Potrafke & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2022. "The determinants of social expenditures in OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 193(3), pages 233-261, December.
    2. Stéphane Goutte & David Guerreiro & Bilel Sanhaji & Sophie Saglio & Julien Chevallier, 2019. "International Financial Markets," Post-Print halshs-02183053, HAL.
    3. Antoine CAZALS & Pierre MANDON, 2016. "Political Budget Cycles: Manipulation from Leaders or Manipulation from Researchers? Evidence from a Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers 201609, CERDI.
    4. Lamar Crombach & Frank Bohn, 2024. "Uninformed voters with (im)precise expectations: Explaining political budget cycle puzzles," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 36(1), pages 275-311, March.
    5. García, Israel & Hayo, Bernd, 2021. "Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    6. George Petrakos & Konstantinos Rontos & Luca Salvati & Chara Vavoura & Ioannis Vavouras, 2022. "Toward a political budget cycle? Unveiling long-term latent paths in Greece," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(5), pages 3379-3394, October.
    7. Antoine Cazals & Pierre Mandon, 2016. "Political Budget Cycles: Manipulation from Leaders or Manipulation from Researchers? Evidence from a Meta-Regression Analysis," Working Papers halshs-01320586, HAL.
    8. Bram Gootjes & Jakob Haan & Richard Jong-A-Pin, 2021. "Do fiscal rules constrain political budget cycles?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(1), pages 1-30, July.
    9. Fuest, Clemens & Gründler, Klaus & Potrafke, Niklas & Ruthardt, Fabian, 2024. "Read my lips? Taxes and elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 236(C).
    10. Potrafke, Niklas, 2020. "General or central government? Empirical evidence on political cycles in budget composition using new data for OECD countries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    11. Baldi, Guido & Forster, Stephan, 2019. "Political Budget Cycles: Evidence from Swiss Cantons," EconStor Preprints 195930, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    12. Klomp, Jeroen, 2023. "Political budget cycles in military expenditures: A meta-analysis," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 1083-1102.
    13. Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Political cycles and economic performance in OECD countries: empirical evidence from 1951–2006," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 155-179, January.
    14. Florian Dorn, 2021. "Elections and Government Efficiency," ifo Working Paper Series 363, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    15. Niklas Potrafke, 2019. "Fiscal Performance of Minority Governments: New Empirical Evidence for OECD Countries," CESifo Working Paper Series 7733, CESifo.
    16. Frank Bohn & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2021. "Do expected downturns kill political budget cycles?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 817-841, October.
    17. Aaskoven, Lasse, 2018. "Polity age and political budget cycles: Evidence from a Danish municipal reform," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 75-84.
    18. Reischmann, Markus, 2016. "Creative accounting and electoral motives: Evidence from OECD countries," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 243-257.
    19. Aidt, Toke S. & Mooney, Graham, 2014. "Voting suffrage and the political budget cycle: Evidence from the London Metropolitan Boroughs 1902–1937," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 53-71.
    20. Castro, Vítor & Martins, Rodrigo, 2018. "Politically driven cycles in fiscal policy: In depth analysis of the functional components of government expenditures," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 44-64.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Environmental Protection; Taxes and Expenditures; Public Opinion; European Union; Panel Data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • Q58 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environmental Economics: Government Policy
    • C23 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models

    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:cdf:wpaper:2018/9. 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: Yongdeng Xu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ecscfuk.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.