IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hhs/uunewp/2016_006.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Political budget cycles with informed voters: evidence from Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Repetto, Luca

    (Department of Economics)

Abstract

I exploit a reform that required Italian municipalities to disclose their balance sheets before elections to study whether having more informed voters aects the political budget cycle. To start, investment spending in the year before elections is 28.5% higher than in the election year and this increase is mainly nanced with new debt and sales of public assets. Taking advantage of the staggered timing of municipal elections, I estimate that the reform reduced this pre-electoral spending increase by around one-third. I also study the role of local newspapers in disseminating municipal nancial information to voters and I nd that the reduction in spending after the reform is twice as strong in provinces with above-median local newspapers sales per capita. I interpret these results as evidence that mayors react to more informed voters by reducing spending manipulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Repetto, Luca, 2016. "Political budget cycles with informed voters: evidence from Italy," Working Paper Series 2016:6, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:hhs:uunewp:2016_006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://uu.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:930346/FULLTEXT01.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Akhmed Akhmedov & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2004. "Opportunistic Political Cycles: Test in a Young Democracy Setting," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(4), pages 1301-1338.
    2. Toke Aidt & Francisco Veiga & Linda Veiga, 2011. "Election results and opportunistic policies: A new test of the rational political business cycle model," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 148(1), pages 21-44, July.
    3. David Bartolini & Raffaella Santolini, 2009. "Fiscal Rules and the Opportunistic Behaviour of the Incumbent Politician: Evidence from Italian Municipalities," CESifo Working Paper Series 2605, CESifo.
    4. Alberto Alesina & Matteo Paradisi, 2017. "Political budget cycles: Evidence from Italian cities," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 157-177, July.
    5. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    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. García, Israel & Hayo, Bernd, 2021. "Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).
    2. Dalle Nogare, Chiara & Kauder, Björn, 2017. "Term limits for mayors and intergovernmental grants: Evidence from Italian cities," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-11.
    3. Peter Spáč, 2021. "Pork barrel politics and electoral returns at the local level," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 479-501, September.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Gupta, Sanjeev & Liu, Estelle X. & Mulas-Granados, Carlos, 2016. "Now or later? The political economy of public investment in democracies," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 101-114.
    7. 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.
    8. Manuela Krause, 2019. "Communal fees and election cycles: Evidence from German municipalities," ifo Working Paper Series 293, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    9. De Haan, Jakob & Ohnsorge, Franziska & Yu, Shu, 2023. "Election-induced fiscal policy cycles in emerging market and developing economies," CEPR Discussion Papers 18708, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. 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.
    11. Marika Cioffi & Giovanna Messina & Pietro Tommasino, 2012. "Parties, institutions and political budget cycles at the municipal level," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 885, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    12. Petrarca, Ilaria, 2014. "No news is costly news: The link between the diffusion of the press and public spending," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 68-85.
    13. Cipullo, Davide & Reslow, André, 2022. "Electoral cycles in macroeconomic forecasts," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 202(C), pages 307-340.
    14. Furdas, Marina & Homolkova, Katerina & Kis-Katos, Krisztina, 2015. "Local Political Budget Cycles in a Federation: Evidence from West German Cities," IZA Discussion Papers 8798, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Hanusch, Marek & Keefer, Philip, 2014. "Younger parties, bigger spenders? Party age and political budget cycles," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 1-18.
    16. Lenka Stastna, 2015. "Electoral Cycles in Public Expenditures: Evidence from Czech Local Governments," Working Papers IES 2015/28, Charles University Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of Economic Studies, revised Dec 2015.
    17. Antonio C. David & Can Sever, 2024. "Electoral cycles in tax reforms," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 67(2), pages 495-529, August.
    18. Rodrigo Martins & Francisco Veiga, 2013. "Economic voting in Portuguese municipal elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 317-334, June.
    19. Jorge M. Streb & Daniel Lema & Gustavo Torrens, 2009. "Checks and Balances on Political Budget Cycles: Cross‐Country Evidence," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 62(3), pages 426-447, August.
    20. Cipullo, Davide, 2018. "Runoff vs. Plurality: Does It Matter for Expenditures? Evidence from Italy," Working Paper Series 2018:13, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Information; Political budget cycles; accountability; Italian municipalities;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State

    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:hhs:uunewp:2016_006. 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: Ulrika Öjdeby (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nekuuse.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.