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Education, fake news and the Political Budget Cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Fabio Padovano

    (CREM-CNRS, Condorcet Center for Political Economy, University of Rennes 1 and DSP, Università Roma Tre, Italy)

  • Pauline Mille

    (University of Rennes 1, CNRS, CREM-UMR 62 11)

Abstract

This paper empirically verifies whether education, an indicator of voters’ ability to process information, constrains political budget cycles (PBC), a measure of inefficiency in the agency relationship between voters and their representatives. Over information and the spread of fake news question the previous results of conditional PBC literature on information as a factor improving such relationship. We proxy the quality of education by PISA scores and the its diffusion by the percentage of students completing secondary and tertiary education. On a sample of 46 countries over the period 2000-2019, the estimates show that higher levels of education reduce the magnitude of PBC. Adding standard proxies for information (media and internet penetration) does not affect the results, showing that education matters more than information. The analysis also evidences differences between higher and lower degrees of democracy. All the other findings of the literature appear confirmed.

Suggested Citation

  • Fabio Padovano & Pauline Mille, 2023. "Education, fake news and the Political Budget Cycle," Economics Working Paper from Condorcet Center for political Economy at CREM-CNRS 2023-01-ccr, Condorcet Center for political Economy.
    • Handle: RePEc:tut:cccrwp:2023-01-ccr
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Political Budget Cycles; education; information processing; fake news; democracy.;
    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
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

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