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Political Accountability and the Size of Government: Theory and Cross-Country Evidence

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  • David Dreyer Lassen

Abstract

This paper explores the effect of political accountability on the size of the public sector in a principal-agent model of democratic government. Political accountability is the degree to which the electorate can control politicians through elections, and emphasis is put on the roles of transparency and political contestability. Increasing transparency and political contestability increases the control of politicians, which makes public goods provision more attractive to voters, increasing the size of government. The prediction of the model is strongly supported by robust empirical evidence from a cross section of 62 democratic countries in 1995.

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  • David Dreyer Lassen, 2000. "Political Accountability and the Size of Government: Theory and Cross-Country Evidence," EPRU Working Paper Series 00-20, Economic Policy Research Unit (EPRU), University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:kud:epruwp:00-20
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    Cited by:

    1. Katarina Ott & Velibor Maèkiæ & Mihaela Broniæ, 2019. "Political Stubbornness and Online Local Budget Transparency in Croatia," Zbornik radova Ekonomskog fakulteta u Rijeci/Proceedings of Rijeka Faculty of Economics, University of Rijeka, Faculty of Economics and Business, vol. 37(2), pages 553-585.
    2. Aidt, Toke S. & Magris, Francesco, 2006. "Capital taxation and electoral accountability," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 277-291, June.
    3. Aidt, T. & Dutta, J. & Vania Sena, 2005. "Growth, Governance and Corruption in the Presence of Threshold Effects: Theory and Evidence," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0540, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    4. Horacio L. P. Piffano, 2007. "Argentina and Brazil: Fiscal Harmonization and Subnational Sales Taxation – State / Provincial VAT versus State / Provincial Retail Sales Tax," IIE, Working Papers 069, IIE, Universidad Nacional de La Plata.
    5. Eiji Yamamura & Haruo Kondoh, 2013. "Government Transparency And Expenditure In The Rent-Seeking Industry: The Case Of Japan For 1998–2004," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(3), pages 635-647, July.
    6. Abel Escribà-Folch, 2009. "Do authoritarian institutions mobilize economic cooperation?," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 71-93, March.
    7. James E. Alt & David Dreyer Lassen, 2003. "The Political Economy of Institutions and Corruption in American States," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 15(3), pages 341-365, July.
    8. Marina Dodlova, 2013. "Political Accountability and Real Authority of Government Bureaucracy," CESifo Working Paper Series 4443, CESifo.
    9. Aidt, T. & Dutta, J. & Loukoianova, E., 2003. "Policy Myopia," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0344, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.

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