Conditional Political Budget Cycle in the OECD Countries

Conditional Political Budget Cycle in the OECD Countries Examination of the so called political business cycle (i. e. macroeconomic cycle induced by the political cycle) provides little evidence in empirical studies. The empirical evidence of statistically signifi cant increase in the economic activity before election is especially a matter of less developer countries. There is a shift in focus to the examination of the political budget cycle in case of the developed economies. This paper examines the presence of conditional political budget cycle (PBC) in the OECD countries using data from all 34 member states over the period 1995- 2012. We suppose that the conditionality of the PBC depends on the credibility and transparency of the fi scal policy. The dynamic panel linear regression model is used in this article. Generalized method of moments (GMM) with instrumental variables (IV) is used for estimating arameters in this model. Three important results emerge: First, there is a PBC in the OECD countries. Second, the PBC in OECD countries strongly depends on credibility and transparency of fi scal policy. Third, the shape of the PBC in the OECD countries indicates that there is an immediate fi scal restriction after the elections.

Keywords: rationality, public choice theory, political budget cycle, policy making, fiscal policy, election, budget deficit