The perfect finance minister: Whom to appoint as finance minister to balance the budget

Beate Jochimsen and Sebastian Thomasius

European Journal of Political Economy, 2014, vol. 34, issue C, 390-408

Abstract: The role and influence of the finance minister within the cabinet are discussed with increasing prominence in the theoretical literature on the political economy of budget deficits. It is generally assumed that the spending ministers can enhance their reputation purely with new or more extensive expenditure programs, whereas it is the sole interest of the finance minister to balance the budget. Using a dynamic panel model to study the development of public deficits, we test several personal characteristics of the finance ministers that could influence budgetary performance in the German states between 1960 and 2009. Her professional background, i.e., her field experience, seems to affect budget deficits but neither her individual preferences nor her education does. During times of fiscal stress, our results can guide prime ministers in the nomination of finance ministers in order to assure sound budgeting.

Keywords: Finance minister; Fiscal policy; Political economy; Public deficit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 H30 H74 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (63)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S017626801300092X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: The Perfect Finance Minister: Whom to Appoint as Finance Minister to Balance the Budget? (2012)
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:eee:poleco:v:34:y:2014:i:c:p:390-408

DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2013.11.002

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Political Economy is currently edited by J. De Haan, A. L. Hillman and H. W. Ursprung

More articles in European Journal of Political Economy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().