Political budget cycles and media freedom
This paper examines the effects of elections on the conduct of central governments' fiscal policies. To do so, it uses a unique panel database that includes disaggregated spending and revenue series at the central government level for multiple countries over the 1975–2010 period. Examining poli...
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| Format: | Article |
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Elsevier
2017
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| Online Access: | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40248/ |
| _version_ | 1848796015953444864 |
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| author | Veiga, Francisco José Veiga, Linda Gonçalves Morozumi, Atsuyoshi |
| author_facet | Veiga, Francisco José Veiga, Linda Gonçalves Morozumi, Atsuyoshi |
| author_sort | Veiga, Francisco José |
| building | Nottingham Research Data Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | This paper examines the effects of elections on the conduct of central governments' fiscal policies. To do so, it uses a unique panel database that includes disaggregated spending and revenue series at the central government level for multiple countries over the 1975–2010 period. Examining political environments under which incumbent governments generate political budget cycles (PBCs), and comparing the relative importance of factors influencing cycles, we identify media freedom as the factor that plays the most critical role. This result provides a micro-foundation for rational opportunistic models for PBCs that rely on asymmetry of information about politicians' competence, and also offers a way to relate different conditioning factors of PBCs, including fiscal transparency and the maturity of democracies. Further, we show that the election-year rise in budget deficits under low media freedom is primarily driven by an increase in the current, not capital, component of public expenditure. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:41:16Z |
| format | Article |
| id | nottingham-40248 |
| institution | University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T19:41:16Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | nottingham-402482020-05-04T18:28:35Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40248/ Political budget cycles and media freedom Veiga, Francisco José Veiga, Linda Gonçalves Morozumi, Atsuyoshi This paper examines the effects of elections on the conduct of central governments' fiscal policies. To do so, it uses a unique panel database that includes disaggregated spending and revenue series at the central government level for multiple countries over the 1975–2010 period. Examining political environments under which incumbent governments generate political budget cycles (PBCs), and comparing the relative importance of factors influencing cycles, we identify media freedom as the factor that plays the most critical role. This result provides a micro-foundation for rational opportunistic models for PBCs that rely on asymmetry of information about politicians' competence, and also offers a way to relate different conditioning factors of PBCs, including fiscal transparency and the maturity of democracies. Further, we show that the election-year rise in budget deficits under low media freedom is primarily driven by an increase in the current, not capital, component of public expenditure. Elsevier 2017-02-01 Article PeerReviewed Veiga, Francisco José, Veiga, Linda Gonçalves and Morozumi, Atsuyoshi (2017) Political budget cycles and media freedom. Electoral Studies, 45 . pp. 88-99. ISSN 0261-3794 Political budget cycles; Central government; Voter information; Media freedom; Fiscal policy composition http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379416301792 doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2016.11.008 doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2016.11.008 |
| spellingShingle | Political budget cycles; Central government; Voter information; Media freedom; Fiscal policy composition Veiga, Francisco José Veiga, Linda Gonçalves Morozumi, Atsuyoshi Political budget cycles and media freedom |
| title | Political budget cycles and media freedom |
| title_full | Political budget cycles and media freedom |
| title_fullStr | Political budget cycles and media freedom |
| title_full_unstemmed | Political budget cycles and media freedom |
| title_short | Political budget cycles and media freedom |
| title_sort | political budget cycles and media freedom |
| topic | Political budget cycles; Central government; Voter information; Media freedom; Fiscal policy composition |
| url | https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40248/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40248/ https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/40248/ |