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The Impact of Within-Party and Between-Party Ideological Dispersion on Fiscal Outcomes : Evidence from Swiss Cantonal Parliaments

Author

Listed:
  • Tjasa Bjedov

    (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)

  • Simon Lapointe

    (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)

  • Thierry Madiès

    (University of Fribourg, Switzerland)

Abstract

The impact of the fragmentation of executive and legislative bodies on the level and composition of government expenditure is a political feature that attracted considerable attention from economists. However, previous authors have abstracted from two important concepts : ideology and intra-party politics. In this paper, we explicitly account for these two phenomenons, and make two main contributions. First, we show that both intra-party and interparty ideological dispersion matters in the level of public spending. Therefore, it is incorrect to consider parties as monolithic entities. We also show that ideological dispersion matters especially for current expenditures, and not so much for investment expenditures. To do so, we construct a panel database (2003 to 2011) including data from a survey that quantifies the policy preferences of individual party members that were candidates to federal elections in Switzerland.

Suggested Citation

  • Tjasa Bjedov & Simon Lapointe & Thierry Madiès, 2014. "The Impact of Within-Party and Between-Party Ideological Dispersion on Fiscal Outcomes : Evidence from Swiss Cantonal Parliaments," Working Papers 1435, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    • Handle: RePEc:gat:wpaper:1435
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    Cited by:

    1. Grechyna, Daryna, 2021. "Mandatory spending, political polarization, and macroeconomic volatility," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
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    3. De Santo, Alessia & Le Maux, Benoît, 2023. "On the optimal size of legislatures: An illustrated literature review," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    4. Randall G. Holcombe & Robert J. Gmeiner, 2018. "Interest group support for non-group issues," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 303-316, September.
    5. Sungho Park & Craig S. Maher & Carol Ebdon, 2020. "Interlocal Collaboration and Local Fiscal Structure: Do State Incentives Matter?," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(2), pages 20-43, June.
    6. Alptekin, Huzeyfe & Freire, Danilo & Mignozzetti, Umberto Guarnier & Roman, Catarina, 2020. "The Effect of Legislature Size on Public Spending: A Meta-Analysis," SocArXiv xf7wp, Center for Open Science.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political Fragmentation; Public Spending; Political Parties; Ideology;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy Formulation and Implementation

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