Rent Seeking, Policy and Growth under Electoral Uncertainty: Theory and Evidence

Konstantinos Angelopoulos and George Economides

DEGIT Conference Papers from DEGIT, Dynamics, Economic Growth, and International Trade

Abstract: We construct an otherwise standard general equilibrium model of economic growth and endogenously chosen fiscal policy, in which individuals compete with each other for extra fiscal transfers and two political parties compete with each other for staying in power. The main prediction is that relatively large public sectors in pre-election periods distort incentives by pushing individuals away from productive work to rent seeking activities. In turn, distorted incentives hurt growth. We test this prediction by using a panel data set of a group of 25 OECD countries over the period 1982-1996, as well as a cross-section of 108 industrial and developing countries over the decade 1990-2000. There is evidence that electoral and/or political instability cause relatively large public sectors, which in turn increase rent seeking (as measured by the ICRG index), and this is bad for economic growth.

Keywords: Political uncertainty; economic growth; incentives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D7 D9 E6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 32 pages
Date: 2005-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-mac and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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