Fiscal policy cycles and public expenditure in developing countries

Ludger Schuknecht

No ERAD-98-06, WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division

Abstract: The paper studies empirically the fiscal policy instruments by which governments try to influence election outcomes in 24 developing countries for the 1973-1992 period. The study finds that the main vehicle for expansionary fiscal policies around elections is increasing public expenditure rather than lowering taxes, and public investment cycles seem particularly prominent. Institutional mechanisms which constrain discretionary expenditure policies and which strengthen fiscal control are therefore worthwhile considering to prevent opportunistic policy making around elections.

Keywords: Elections; political business cycles; fiscal policies; public expenditure; developing countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E62 F4 H62 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1998
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/90683/2/776116010.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Fiscal Policy Cycles and Public Expenditure in Developing Countries (2000)
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:zbw:wtowps:erad9806

DOI: 10.30875/11fd21d5-en

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WTO Staff Working Papers from World Trade Organization (WTO), Economic Research and Statistics Division Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().