 A partisan model of government expenditureThomas Bräuninger () Public Choice, 2005, vol. 125, issue 3, 409-429 Abstract: Partisan models of budget politics largely concentrate on the size of government, budget deficits and debt, but most theories have little to say as to what the effect of party politics on both the size and the composition of budgets is. This paper seeks to extend previous literature in two directions. First, a model of spending preferences is developed that relates actors' preferred level and allocation of expenditure to electoral gains from fiscal policies. Second, changes in both total expenditure and the expenditure mix of two budget categories are analyzed for the effect of parties' spending preferences as stated in their election manifestos. Using data on 19 OECD countries from 1971 to 1999, the paper finds support for general partisan hypothesis. The results suggest that the actual spending preferences of parties matter whereas they do not indicate that parties of the left consistently differ from parties of the right in their spending behavior. Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005 Date: 2005 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:125:y:2005:i:3:p:409-429 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1007/s11127-005-3055-x Access Statistics for this article Public Choice is currently edited by WIlliam F. Shughart II More articles in Public Choice from Springer |
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.