 Fiscal institutions and public spending volatility in EuropeEconomic Modelling, 2011, vol. 28, issue 6, 2544-2559 Abstract: This work provides empirical evidence for a sizeable, statistically significant negative impact of the quality of fiscal institutions on public spending volatility for a panel of 23 EU countries over the 1980–2007 period. The dependent variable is the volatility of discretionary fiscal policy, which does not represent reactions to changes in economic conditions. Our baseline results thus give support to the strengthening of institutions to deal with excessive levels of discretion volatility, as more checks and balances make it harder for governments to change fiscal policy for reasons unrelated to the current state of the economy. Our results also show that bigger countries and bigger governments have less public spending volatility. In contrast to previous studies, the political factors do not seem to play a role, with the exception of the Herfindahl index, which suggests that a high concentration of parliamentary seats in a few parties would increase public spending volatility. Keywords: Fiscal policy; Policy volatility; Fiscal rules; Fiscal institutions (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:28:y:2011:i:6:p:2544-2559 DOI: 10.1016/j.econmod.2011.07.018 Access Statistics for this article Economic Modelling is currently edited by S. Hall and P. Pauly More articles in Economic Modelling from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.