Macroeconomic Policy and Elections in OECD Democracies

Alberto Alesina, Gerald D Cohen and Nouriel Roubini ()

No 608, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to test for evidence of opportunistic `political business cycles' in a large sample of 18 OECD economies. Our results can be summarized as follows. First, we find very little evidence of pre-electoral effects of economic outcomes, in particular, on GDP growth and unemployment. Second, we see some evidence of `political monetary cycles', that is, expansionary monetary policy in election years. Third, we observe indications of `political budget cycles', or `loose' fiscal policy prior to elections. Fourth, inflation exhibits a post-electoral jump, which could be explained by either the pre-electoral `loose' monetary and fiscal policies and/or by an opportunistic timing of increases in publicly controlled prices, or indirect taxes.

Keywords: Elections; Political Business Cycle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D78 E42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1992-01
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (130)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=608 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Journal Article: MACROECONOMIC POLICY AND ELECTIONS IN OECD DEMOCRACIES* (1992)
Working Paper: Macroeconomic Policy and Elections in OECD Democracies (1992)
Working Paper: Macroeconomic Policy and Elections in OECD Democracies (1991)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:608

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.cepr.org/ ... pers/dp.php?dpno=608

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().