Is there an election cycle in public employment? Separating time effects from election year effects

Matz Dahlberg () and Eva Mörk ()
Additional contact information
Matz Dahlberg: Uppsala University, IFAU, CESifo & IEB

No 2011/8, Working Papers from Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB)

Abstract: Do governments increase public employment in election years? This paper answers this question by using data from Sweden and Finland, two countries that are similar in many respects but in which local elections are held at different points in time. These facts make it possible for us to separate an election effect from other time effects. Our results indicate that there is a statistically significant election year effect in local public employment, a production factor that is highly visible in the welfare services provided by the local governments in the Scandinavian countries. The effect also seems to be economically significant; the municipalities employ 0.6 more full-time employees per 1,000 capita in election years than in other years (which correspond to an increase by approximately 1 percent).

Keywords: election cycle; public employment; exogenous elections (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H72 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 30 pages
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (22)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ieb.ub.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/2011-IEB-WorkingPaper-08.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Is There an Election Cycle in Public Employment? Separating Time Effects from Election Year Effects (2011)
Working Paper: Is There an Election Cycle in Public Employment? Separating Time Effects from Election Year Effects (2008)
Working Paper: Is there an election cycle in public employment? Separating time effects from election year effects (2008)
Working Paper: Is there an election cycle in public employment? Separating time effects from election year effects (2008)
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:ieb:wpaper:doc2011-8

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().