Political Cycles in Public Expenditure: Butter vs Guns

Vincenzo Bove and Georgios Efthyvoulou

No 7/2013, NEPS Working Papers from Network of European Peace Scientists

Abstract: This paper investigates how the timing of elections and government ideological motivations influence the dynamics of social and military expenditure in a panel of 22 OECD countries over the period 1988-2008. Three basic results emerge: First, governments tend to bias outlays towards social expenditure and away from military expenditure at election times. Second, membership in the NATO alliance affects the timing of election-driven military spending manipulations. Third, partisan distinctions are clearly discernible but differ between the two types of expenditure: while certain categories of social expenditure are higher during left administrations, military expenditure are higher during right administrations.

Keywords: elections; partisanship; social expenditure; military expenditure (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C33 D72 H53 H56 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2013-10-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm, nep-pbe and nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Related works:
Journal Article: Political cycles in public expenditure: butter vs guns (2017)
Working Paper: Political Cycles in Public Expenditure: Butter vs Guns (2013)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ris:nepswp:2013_007

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