IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/fubsbe/200812.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What determines fiscal policy? Evidence from German states

Author

Listed:
  • Berger, Helge
  • Holler, Anika

Abstract

This paper explores the factors behind the time path of real spending and revenue in the West German states from 1975 to 2004. The empirical approach stresses robustness and takes into account a large set of economic and political variables. Our results suggest that common economic factors and, to a smaller degree, state-specific economic developments are important determinants of state fiscal performance. In comparison, the influence of political factors is limited both in statistical and quantitative terms. Finally, there is evidence that addressing governance problems and ensuring flexibility in terms of fiscal strategy are important ingredients for any policy aimed at improving fiscal outcomes at the state level.

Suggested Citation

  • Berger, Helge & Holler, Anika, 2007. "What determines fiscal policy? Evidence from German states," Discussion Papers 2008/12, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:fubsbe:200812
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/28078/1/571554679.PDF
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hibbs, Douglas A., 1977. "Political Parties and Macroeconomic Policy," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(4), pages 1467-1487, December.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    3. Nouriel Roubini & Jeffrey Sachs, 1988. "Political and Economic Determinants of Budget Deficits in the IndustrialDemocracies," NBER Working Papers 2682, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Seitz, Helmut, 2000. "Fiscal Policy, Deficits and Politics of Subnational Governments: The Case of the German Laender," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 102(3-4), pages 183-218, March.
    5. Alberto Alesina & Roberto Perotti, 1995. "The Political Economy of Budget Deficits," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 42(1), pages 1-31, March.
    6. Peter Pedroni, 1999. "Critical Values for Cointegration Tests in Heterogeneous Panels with Multiple Regressors," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 653-670, November.
    7. repec:bla:obuest:v:61:y:1999:i:0:p:631-52 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Sala-i-Martin, Xavier, 1997. "I Just Ran Two Million Regressions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 178-183, May.
    9. Choi, In, 2001. "Unit root tests for panel data," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 249-272, April.
    10. Jochimsen, Beate & Nuscheler, Robert, 2005. "The Political Economy of the German Länder Deficits," Discussion Papers 2005/6, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    11. Niklas Potrafke, 2006. "Parties Matter in Allocating Expenditures: Evidence from Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 652, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    12. G. S. Maddala & Shaowen Wu, 1999. "A Comparative Study of Unit Root Tests with Panel Data and a New Simple Test," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 61(S1), pages 631-652, November.
    13. William D. Nordhaus, 1975. "The Political Business Cycle," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 42(2), pages 169-190.
    14. repec:bla:obuest:v:61:y:1999:i:0:p:653-70 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Bischoff, Ivo & Gohout, Wolfgang, 2006. "Tax projections in German states – manipulated by opportunistic incumbent parties?," Finanzwissenschaftliche Arbeitspapiere 74, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Fachbereich Wirtschaftswissenschaften.
    16. Galli, Emma & Rossi, Stefania P S, 2002. "Political Budget Cycles: The Case of the Western German Lander," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 110(3-4), pages 283-303, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Niklas Potrafke, 2013. "Economic Freedom and Government Ideology across the German States," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(3), pages 433-449, March.
    2. Lars P. Feld, 2010. "Sinnhaftigkeit und Effektivität der deutschen Schuldenbremse," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 11(3), pages 226-245, August.
    3. Foremny, Dirk & Riedel, Nadine, 2014. "Business taxes and the electoral cycle," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 48-61.
    4. Sven Jari Stehn & Ms. Annalisa Fedelino, 2009. "Fiscal Incentive Effects of the German Equalization System," IMF Working Papers 2009/124, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Hayo, Bernd & Neumeier, Florian, 2014. "Political leaders' socioeconomic background and fiscal performance in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 184-205.
    7. Stegarescu, Dan, 2013. "Does expenditure composition influence the debt level? Evidence from German federal states," Discussion Papers 52/2013, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    8. Braendle, Thomas, 2012. "Determinants of Employment in the Ministerial Bureaucracy," Working papers 2012/01, Faculty of Business and Economics - University of Basel.
    9. repec:dau:papers:123456789/6913 is not listed 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. Jochimsen, Beate & Thomasius, Sebastian, 2014. "The perfect finance minister: Whom to appoint as finance minister to balance the budget," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 390-408.
    2. Niklas Potrafke, 2006. "Parties Matter in Allocating Expenditures: Evidence from Germany," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 652, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Michał Mackiewicz, 2006. "Przyczyny deficytu finansów publicznych w świetle nowej ekonomii politycznej," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 3, pages 1-22.
    4. Dilla, Diana, 2017. "Staatsverschuldung und Verschuldungsmentalität [Public Debt and Debt Mentality]," MPRA Paper 79432, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Hayo, Bernd & Neumeier, Florian, 2014. "Political leaders' socioeconomic background and fiscal performance in Germany," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 184-205.
    6. Jochimsen, Beate & Nuscheler, Robert, 2005. "The Political Economy of the German Länder Deficits," Discussion Papers 2005/6, Free University Berlin, School of Business & Economics.
    7. Achten-Gozdowski, Jennifer, 2018. "Geschichte und Politökonomie deutscher Theatersubventionen [History and Political Economy of Public Subsidies for German Theatres and Operas]," MPRA Paper 85087, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Toke S. Aidt & Francisco José Veiga & Linda Gonçalves Veiga, 2007. "Election Results and Opportunistic Policies: An Integrated Approach," NIPE Working Papers 24/2007, NIPE - Universidade do Minho.
    9. Aidt, Toke S. & Mooney, Graham, 2014. "Voting suffrage and the political budget cycle: Evidence from the London Metropolitan Boroughs 1902–1937," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 53-71.
    10. Beate Jochimsen & Robert Nuscheler, 2011. "The political economy of the German Lander deficits: weak governments meet strong finance ministers," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(19), pages 2399-2415.
    11. Linda Veiga & Francisco Veiga, 2007. "Political business cycles at the municipal level," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 131(1), pages 45-64, April.
    12. Niklas Potrafke, 2012. "Political cycles and economic performance in OECD countries: empirical evidence from 1951–2006," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(1), pages 155-179, January.
    13. Beate Jochimsen & Robert Lehmann, 2017. "On the political economy of national tax revenue forecasts: evidence from OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 211-230, March.
    14. Oberndorfer, Ulrich & Steiner, Viktor, 2006. "Intergenerational Conflict, Partisan Politics, and Public Higher Education Spending: Evidence from the German States," IZA Discussion Papers 2417, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Ganesh Manjhi & Meeta Keswani Mehra, 2019. "Dynamics of Political Budget Cycle," Italian Economic Journal: A Continuation of Rivista Italiana degli Economisti and Giornale degli Economisti, Springer;Società Italiana degli Economisti (Italian Economic Association), vol. 5(1), pages 135-158, March.
    16. Niklas Potrafke, 2011. "Public Expenditures on Education and Cultural Affairs in the West German States: Does Government Ideology Influence the Budget Composition?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 12(1), pages 124-145, February.
    17. Foremny, Dirk & Freier, Ronny & Moessinger, Marc-Daniel & Yeter, Mustafa, 2014. "Overlapping political budget cycles in the legislative and the executive," ZEW Discussion Papers 14-099, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    18. 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.
    19. Pantelis Kammas & Vassilis Sarantides, 2016. "Fiscal redistribution around elections when democracy is not “the only game in town”," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 168(3), pages 279-311, September.
    20. García, Israel & Hayo, Bernd, 2021. "Political budget cycles revisited: Testing the signalling process," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    German Länder; fiscal policy; public spending; public debt; extreme bounds analysis; governance.;
    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
    • H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt

    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:zbw:fubsbe:200812. 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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/fwfubde.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.