Promised Fiscal Expansions and Politics: A European Union Assessment.

IF 1.5 Q2 ECONOMICS

Comparative Economic Studies Pub Date : 2021-01-01 Epub Date: 2020-08-31 DOI:10.1057/s41294-020-00135-y

João Tovar Jalles

引用次数: 3

Abstract

This paper analyzes the political economy causes of fiscal promise gaps, defined as the distance between planned fiscal objectives and actual realizations during planned fiscal expansions periods. Using a sample of 27 European Union countries between 1992 and 2015, we identify, by means of an "hybrid" narrative approach, 68 episodes of promised fiscal expansions. We show that expansionary promise gaps were sizeable (about 1.5-2.5% of GDP during an average fiscal expansion episode) and that initial and economic conditions matter in explaining their size. We also find that the more leftist a government is, the larger the expansionary promise gap. Governments facing weak opposition in the parliament and those more effective are characterized by smaller expansionary promise gaps. Regarding the importance of decentralization and the role played by subnational governments, the larger their capacity to influence national legislation and policy, the larger the promise gaps.

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承诺的财政扩张与政治:欧盟评估。

本文分析了财政承诺缺口的政治经济学原因，财政承诺缺口被定义为计划财政扩张期间计划财政目标与实际实现之间的距离。我们以1992年至2015年间的27个欧盟国家为样本，通过“混合”叙事方法，确定了68次承诺的财政扩张。我们表明，扩张性承诺缺口是相当大的(在平均财政扩张时期约占GDP的1.5-2.5%)，初始条件和经济条件在解释其规模方面很重要。我们还发现，一个政府越左翼，其扩张性承诺缺口就越大。在议会中面临弱势反对的政府和那些效率更高的政府，其特点是扩张性承诺差距较小。关于权力下放的重要性和地方政府发挥的作用，地方政府影响国家立法和政策的能力越大，承诺差距就越大。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Comparative Economic Studies ECONOMICS-

CiteScore

2.30

自引率

12.50%

发文量

期刊介绍： Comparative Economic Studies is a journal of the Association for Comparative Economic Studies (ACES). It aims to publish papers that address several objectives: that provide original political economy analysis from a comparative perspective, that are an accessible source for state-of-the-art comparative economics thinking, that encourage cross-fertilization of ideas, that debate directions for future research in comparative economics, and that can provide materials and insights that are relevant for teaching, public policy debate and the media. Comparative Economic Studies welcome both submissions that are explicitly comparative and case studies of single countries or regions. The journal is interested in papers that investigate how economic systems respond to economic transitions, crises and to structural change, brought about by globalization, demographics, institutions, technology, politics, and the environment. While maintaining its position as an important outlet for work on Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union, the scope of Comparative Economic Studies encompasses other areas as well (European Union, Asia, Latin America, and Africa).