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Rational Opportunistic Political Business Cycles

Author: Tobias Fritsch

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2010-02

Total Pages: 61

ISBN-13: 3640535782

Research Paper (undergraduate) from the year 2006 in the subject Business economics - Economic Policy, grade: 2,0, Free University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: The current political decisions do not only affect the economy, additionally also future capital stocks and (infra-) structures are significantly influenced. Generally one should keep in mind that natural resources as well as price inflation for produced goods highly depend on the decision whether to consume now or save them for later. One of the most important influence factors for the economical life is the government policy. The trade-off between the focus on present and future welfare (between consuming and saving) is mainly based on political decisions. Thus it is important to address the role of the government and understand how elections and voters might influence the decision of the political parties during their incumbency. This paper describes the motivation of the politicians to influence the voters before the election takes place in order to win. Generally speaking, they use economical instruments (like the Phillips curve, aggregated demand, budgets, etc.) to increase their chance for the next election. However the usage of these instruments produces a downturn shortly after the election; the whole process is called a political business cycle.

Political Business Cycles

Author: Bruno S. Frey

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781858983998

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A collection of articles on how the government influences the economy in order to secure re-election. This book surveys the empirical and major theoretical approaches, such as vote maximization, partisan and vote-cum-partisan models, and rational political business cycles. It provides extensions including the role of the central bank, of direct democracy, and the cycles in European communist countries, as well as discussing policy relevance.

Political Cycles and the Macroeconomy

Author: Alberto Alesina

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 9780262510943

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This book examines how electoral laws, the timing of election, the ideological orientation of governments, and the nature of competition between political parties influence unemployment, economic growth, inflation, and monetary and fiscal policy. The book presents both a thorough overview of the theoretical literature and a vast amount of empirical evidence.

Timing is All

Author: Michael W. Klein

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13:

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Political business cycle theories predict that the occurrence and outcome of elections affect the timing of business cycle turning points. Opportunistic political business cycle theory predicts that a contraction is more likely to end soon after an election than at other times. Rational partisan political business cycle theory predicts differences in the likelihood of the end of an expansion after an election depending upon the party of newly-elected president. This paper directly tests the effect of elections on the turning points of the United States business cycle during analysis. The prediction that a contraction is more likely to end in the period before an election than in other periods is not supported by our empirical results. There is significant evidence. however. that an expansion is significantly more likely to end after the election of a Republican president but not after the election of a Democratic president in the post-World War I and post-World War II periods. This is consistent with the predictions of rational partisan political business cycle theory.

Political business cycles in a democracy

Author: Andrei Horlau

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2013-04-09

Total Pages: 19

ISBN-13: 3656404135

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Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Politics - Topic: Globalization, Political Economics, grade: 2,7, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel (Institut für Sozialwissenschaften), course: Governing the crisis: how democracies deal with adverse economic conditions, language: English, abstract: Various economic difficulties and economic crises can be challenges for democratic political systems. In some cases it can lead to social cataclysms and even destruction of political systems. In this connection, different political actors offer different programs in order to solve current socio-economic problems. However, according to the modern economic theory the free market economy develops cyclical, and the period of recession always comes after the recovery. There is the conception of political business cycles, which confirm it. Nevertheless political parties often have to carry out the policies and even take part in elections in conditions of economic crises. In some cases they even have to change their programs or significantly correct them in order to keep their voters. In this way, the problem of this term paper is the following one: what are the implications for political parties if they stand for elections in times of crises and their behavior towards voters is either opportunistic or ideological? In order to give the answer for this question which is actual for the current European sovereign debt crisis it is first of all necessary to define political business cycle and to describe their models, which also include the concepts of the parties’ behavior as well as their interaction with voters and issues. Then the role of political business cycles in the economic crises will be explained. The understanding of the nature of political business cycles and the activities of political parties in them reveal the implications which the parties face by elections in times of crises. It can be also helpful for overcoming the consequences of the crisis with simultaneously saving of political stability.

Election Results and Opportunistic Policies

Author: Toke S. Aidt

Publisher:

Published: 2009

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy

Author: Alberto Alesina

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1995-01-27

Total Pages: 302

ISBN-13: 9780521436205

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This book develops an integrated approach to understanding the American economy and national elections. Economic policy is generally seen as the result of a compromise between the President and Congress. Because Democrats and Republicans usually maintain polarized preferences on policy, middle-of-the-road voters seek to balance the President by reinforcing in Congress the party not holding the White House. This balancing leads, always, to relatively moderate policies and, frequently, to divided government. The authors first outline the rational partisan business cycle, where Republican administrations begin with recession, and Democratic administrations with expansions, and next the midterm cycle, where the President's party loses votes in the mid-term congressional election. The book argues that both cycles are the result of uncertainty about the outcome of presidential elections. Other topics covered include retrospective voting on the economy, coat-tails, and incumbency advantage. A final chapter shows how the analysis sheds light on the economies and political processes of other industrial democracies.

NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000

Author: Ben Bernanke

Publisher: Mit Press

Published: 2001-02-19

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 9780262025034

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The NBER Macroeconomics Annual presents, extends, and applies pioneering work in macroeconomics and stimulates work by macroeconomists on important policy issues. Each paper in the Annual is followed by comments and discussion.

Political Cycles in OECD Economies

Author: Alberto Alesina

Publisher:

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13:

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This paper studies whether the dynamic behavior of GNP growth, unemployment and inflation is systematically affected by the timing of elections and of changes of governments. The sample includes the last three decades in 18 OECD economies. We explicitly test the implication of several models of political cycles, both of the "opportunistic" and of the "partisan" type. Also, we confront the implication of recent "rational" models with more traditional approaches. Our results can be summarized as follows: a) The "political business cycle" hypothesis, as formulated in Nordhaus (1975) on output and unemployment is generally rejected by the data. With the exception of Japan, we also reject by the extension of the "political business cycle" model, with endogenous timing of elections; b) inflation tends to increase immediately after elections, perhaps as a result of preelectoral expansionary monetary and fiscal policies; (c) we fire evidence of temporary partisan differences in output and unemployment and of long-run partisan differences in the inflation rate as implied by the "rational partisan theory" by Alesina (1987); (d) we find virtually no evidence of permanent partisan differences in output and unemployment.

Election Timing

Author: Alastair Smith

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2004-07-19

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780521833639

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Endogenous election timing allows leaders to schedule elections 'when the time is right'. The author proposes and tests an informational theory of endogenous election timing that explains when leaders call for elections and the consequences of their decisions. In particular, he argues that, if all else is equal, leaders announce elections when they anticipate a decline in their future performance. As a consequence, early elections signal a leader's lack of confidence in future outcomes. The earlier elections occur, relative to expectations, the stronger the signal of demise. Using data on British parliaments since 1945, the author tests hypotheses related to timing of elections, electoral support and subsequent economic performance. Leaders who call elections early (relative to expectations) experience a decline in their popular support relative to pre-announcement levels, experience worse post-electoral performance, and have shorter campaigns.