The dynamics of public investment under persistent electoral advantage

Marina Azzimonti

Review of Economic Dynamics, 2015, vol. 18, issue 3, 653-678

Abstract: This paper studies the effects of asymmetries in re-election probabilities across parties on public policy and their subsequent propagation to the economy. The struggle between groups that disagree on targeted public spending (e.g., pork) results in governments being endogenously short-sighted: Systematic underinvestment in infrastructure and overspending on targeted goods arise, above and beyond what is observed in symmetric environments. Because the party enjoying an electoral advantage is less short-sighted, it devotes a larger proportion of revenues to productive investment. Hence, political turnover induces economic fluctuations in an otherwise deterministic environment. I characterize analytically the long-run distribution of allocations and show that output increases with electoral advantage, despite the fact that governments expand. Volatility is non-monotonic in electoral advantage and is an additional source of inefficiency. Using panel data from US states I confirm these findings. (Copyright: Elsevier)

Keywords: Public investment; Political cycles; Time consistency; Electoral advantage; Volatility; State legislature; State finances (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E61 E62 H11 H29 H41 O23 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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Working Paper: The dynamics of public investment under persistent electoral advantage (2011)
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DOI: 10.1016/j.red.2014.08.005

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