POLITICAL BUDGET CYCLES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION – POST-COMMUNIST HERITAGE
POLITICAL BUDGET CYCLES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION – POST-COMMUNIST HERITAGE
Author(s): Michał WielechowskiSubject(s): Economic history, Political history, Economic policy, Government/Political systems, Post-Communist Transformation, EU-Accession / EU-DEvelopment, Fiscal Politics / Budgeting
Published by: Szkoła Główna Gospodarstwa Wiejskiego w Warszawie
Keywords: political budget cycle (PBC); election cycle; general government expenditure; fiscal manipulation; European Union; EU post-communist countries;
Summary/Abstract: We test the hypothesis that post-communist history affect election cycles in the European Union countries. We show that pre-election fiscal manipulation increase total public spending per capita by 1.9% and three specific spending categories, i.e. general public services, public order and safety, and economic affairs in Central and Eastern Europe democracies with post-communist roots. At the same time we observe no significant spending deviations in remaining EU Member States, except expenditure linked to environmental protection. Our results indicate cross-country heterogeneity of political budget cycles (PBCs) in the EU, conditional on political system history
Journal: Acta Scientiarum Polonorum. Oeconomia
- Issue Year: 17/2018
- Issue No: 2
- Page Range: 125-132
- Page Count: 8
- Language: English