IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/17655.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Electoral Consequences of Large Fiscal Adjustments

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto F. Alesina
  • Dorian Carloni
  • Giampaolo Lecce

Abstract

The conventional wisdom regarding the political consequences of large reductions of budget deficits is that they are very costly for the governments which implement them: they are punished by voters at the following elections. In the present paper, instead, we find no evidence that governments which quickly reduce budget deficits are systematically voted out of office in a sample of 19 OECD countries from 1975 to 2008. We also take into consideration issues of reverse causality, namely the possibility that only "strong and popular" governments can implement fiscal adjustments and thus they are not voted out of office "despite" having reduced the deficits. In the end we conclude that many governments can reduce deficits avoiding an electoral defeat.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto F. Alesina & Dorian Carloni & Giampaolo Lecce, 2011. "The Electoral Consequences of Large Fiscal Adjustments," NBER Working Papers 17655, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:17655
    Note: PE POL
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17655.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marco Buti & Paul Van Den Noord, 2004. "Fiscal Discretion and Elections in the Early Years of EMU," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(4), pages 737-756, November.
    2. Roberto Perotti, 2012. "The "Austerity Myth": Gain without Pain?," NBER Chapters, in: Fiscal Policy after the Financial Crisis, pages 307-354, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Francesco Giavazzi & Marco Pagano, 1990. "Can Severe Fiscal Contractions Be Expansionary? Tales of Two Small European Countries," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1990, Volume 5, pages 75-122, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Kenneth Rogoff & Anne Sibert, 1988. "Elections and Macroeconomic Policy Cycles," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 55(1), pages 1-16.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna, 2010. "Large Changes in Fiscal Policy: Taxes versus Spending," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 24, pages 35-68, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Sebastian Hauptmeier & Martin Heipertz & Ludger Schuknecht, 2007. "Expenditure Reform in Industrialised Countries: A Case-Study Approach," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 28(3), pages 293-342, September.
    7. Seppo Honkapohja & Erkki Koskela, 1999. "The economic crisis of the 1990s in Finland," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 14(29), pages 400-436.
    8. Alberto Alesina & Silvia Ardagna & Francesco Trebbi, 2006. "Who Adjusts and When?The Political Economy of Reforms," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 53(si), pages 1-1.
    9. Alesina, Alberto & Drazen, Allan, 1991. "Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1170-1188, December.
    10. 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.
    11. Claude Giorno & Pete Richardson & Deborah Roseveare & Paul van den Noord, 1995. "Estimating Potential Output, Output Gaps and Structural Budget Balances," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 152, OECD Publishing.
    12. Adi Brender & Allan Drazen, 2008. "How Do Budget Deficits and Economic Growth Affect Reelection Prospects? Evidence from a Large Panel of Countries," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(5), pages 2203-2220, December.
    13. Mr. Alexander Plekhanov & Mr. Manmohan S. Kumar & Mr. Daniel Leigh, 2007. "Fiscal Adjustments: Determinants and Macroeconomic Consequences," IMF Working Papers 2007/178, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Marco Buti & Alessandro Turrini & Paul Noord & Pietro Biroli, 2009. "Defying the ‘Juncker curse’: can reformist governments be re-elected?," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 65-100, February.
    15. Roberto Perotti, 2011. "The "Austerity myth": Gain Without Pain?," BIS Working Papers 362, Bank for International Settlements.
    16. Marco Buti & Alessandro Turrini & Paul Van den Noord & Pietro Biroli, 2010. "Reforms and re-elections in OECD countries [Regulation and distrust]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 25(61), pages 61-116.
    17. Marco Buti & Paul van den Noord, 2004. "Fiscal policy in EMU: Rules, discretion and political incentives," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 206, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    18. Roberto Perotti, 2011. "The "Austerity Myth": Gain without Pain?," Working Papers 430, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    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. Bernd Hayo & Florian Neumeier, 2017. "Public Attitudes toward Fiscal Consolidation: Evidence from a Representative German Population Survey," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 70(1), pages 42-69, February.
    2. Ziogas, Thanasis & Panagiotidis, Theodore, 2021. "Revisiting the political economy of fiscal adjustments," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 111(C).
    3. Szilárd Benk & Zoltán M. Jakab, 2012. "Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Consolidation: An Analysis with an Estimated DSGE Model for the Hungarian Economy," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 945, OECD Publishing.
    4. Alesina, A. & Passalacqua, A., 2016. "The Political Economy of Government Debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2599-2651, Elsevier.
    5. Sebastian Dellepiane & Niamh Hardiman, 2012. "Fiscal Politics In Time: Pathways to Fiscal Consolidation, 1980-2012," Working Papers 201228, Geary Institute, University College Dublin.
    6. Walter Paternesi Meloni, 2017. "Austerity & Competitiveness in the Eurozone: a misleading linkage," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0223, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    7. Alessandra Bonfiglioli & Gino Gancia, 2013. "Uncertainty, Electoral Incentives and Political Myopia," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 373-400, May.
    8. Christoph A. Schaltegger & Martin Weder, 2014. "Fiscal adjustment and the costs of public debt service: evidence from OECD countries," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(22), pages 2593-2610, August.
    9. Daniel Heymann & Axel Leijonhufvud, 2014. "Multiple Choices: Economic Policies in Crisis," International Economic Association Series, in: Joseph E. Stiglitz & Daniel Heymann (ed.), Life After Debt, chapter 5, pages 281-308, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Paternesi Meloni, Walter, 2016. "Austerity and competitiveness in the Eurozone: a misleading linkage," MPRA Paper 75962, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Alessandra Bonfiglioli and Gino Gancia, 2010. "The Political Cost of Reforms," Working Papers 507, Barcelona School of Economics.
    12. A. Affuso & V. Bravi, 2014. "La spesa pubblica in Italia prima e dopo la crisi," Economics Department Working Papers 2014-EP01, Department of Economics, Parma University (Italy).
    13. D�ra Győrffy, 2015. "Austerity and growth in Central and Eastern Europe: understanding the link through contrasting crisis management in Hungary and Latvia," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 27(2), pages 129-152, June.
    14. Maxime Menuet & Alexandru Minea & Patrick Villieu, 2019. "Endogenous fluctuations and the balanced-budget rule: taxes versus spending-based adjustment," Post-Print halshs-02318369, HAL.
    15. Branimir Jovanovic, 2017. "Growth forecast errors and government investment and consumption multipliers," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(1), pages 83-107, January.
    16. George D. Demopoulos & Nicholas A. Yannacopoulos, 2015. "Conditions that may invalidate the prediction of the expansionary austerity policies," Working Papers 201502, Athens University Of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    17. Degiannakis, Stavros & Duffy, David & Filis, George & Livada, Alexandra, 2016. "Business cycle synchronisation in EMU: Can fiscal policy bring member-countries closer?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 52(PB), pages 551-563.
    18. Menzie Chinn, 2013. "fiscal multipliers," The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics,, Palgrave Macmillan.
    19. Sebastian Dullien, 2012. "Is new always better than old? On the treatment of fiscal policy in Keynesian models," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 1(0), pages 5-23.
    20. Giancarlo Corsetti & Keith Kuester & André Meier & Gernot J. Müller, 2013. "Sovereign Risk, Fiscal Policy, and Macroeconomic Stability," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 99-132, February.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H3 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents
    • H5 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies

    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:nbr:nberwo:17655. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.