Executive Authority, the Personal Vote, and Budget Discipline in Latin American and Caribbean Countries

Hallerberg, Mark; Marier, Patrik

doi:10.1111/j.0092-5853.2004.00088.x

Cited by 137 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…The structure of the budget process can help alleviate exploitation of the common pool of state revenue. Numerous studies have demonstrated that a centralized budget process is more effective at lowering aggregate spending levels than a decentralized system (Brady and Morgan 1987;Cogan 1994;Crain and Muris 1995;Hallerberg and Marier 2004;Velasco 1999). For example, Cogan (1994) and Brady and Morgan (1987) find that federal spending began to rise when the number of congressional committees with control over spending decisions increased.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legislative term limits and state spending

Erler

2007

Public Choice

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Legislative term limits and state spending

Erler

2007

Public Choice

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“…Several recent papers (e.g., Alesina et al 1999;Filc and Scartascini 2004;Gleich 2003;Hallerberg and Marier 2004;Stein, Talvi, and Grisanti 1998;von Hagen 1991;von Hagen and Harden 1995) have shown that the institutions organizing the budget process have an impact on budget balances: "hierarchical," as opposed to "collegial" budget institutions lead to lower deficits (higher balances). If it is true that presidents have a stronger incentive than prime ministers to keep control over the budget, budget institutions should be, on average, more "hierarchical" in presidential than in parliamentary systems because it is through these institutions that presidents will be able to control the budget (Hallerberg and Marier 2004).…”

Section: Presidential Powers and Budget Balancesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Presidentialism, Electoral Identifiability, and Budget Balances in Democratic Systems

Cheibub

2006

Am Polit Sci Rev

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T his paper examines the impact of the form of government--presidential or parliamentary--on fiscal outcomes in democratic systems. Based on data for democracies in 98 countries between 1970 and 2002, it shows that the gross domestic product ratio of the central government budget balance is higher in presidential than in parliamentary democracies. It also shows that this impact is not due to the fact that presidential systems are not subject to the "costs of coalition" that allegedly afflict parliamentary democracies: the coalition and status of the government are of no consequence for budget balances in either presidential or parliamentary systems. Presidential systems matter for budget balances because they generate relatively high incentives for governments to keep budgets under control. They do so because in presidential systems, unlike in parliamentary systems, voters are by design able to identify and punish those responsible for economic policies. Presidents, however, vary in their capacity to affect budget policies. This paper demonstrates that presidential systems in which presidents are constitutionally able to dominate the budget process or to effectively veto legislation tend to have higher budget balances than those in which the budget process is dominated by the legislature or the president is unable to exercise existing veto powers. D oes the form of democratic government matter for economic outcomes? Specifically, does it matter for economic performance whether a country has a presidential or a parliamentary constitution? In this paper I show that it does, at least when it comes to fiscal outcomes: on balance, budget deficits are smaller in presidential than in parliamentary democracies. The reason, I suggest, has to do with the way presidential constitutions define the relationship between the voters and the government; specifically with the fact that electoral identifiability--the ability of voters to identify and punish those responsible for economic policies--is by design high in presidential systems, thus generating incentives for the president--the head of the government--to keep budgets under control. Moreover, I show that, given their incentives to control budget deficits, presidents vary in their capacity to do so.Most of the comparative studies of presidentialism have focused on the impact that a system in which the executive and the legislature are independent from one another might have on the survival of democracy. There were empirical and theoretical reasons for this concern. A cursory look around the world shows that there is only one long-living democracy that is also presidential--the United States. At the same time, Latin America, the region of the world where presidential institutions have dominated since the 19th century, is also the region with the highest level of regime instability, understood here as shifts between dictatorship

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“…5 For empirical tests of this argument, see, for example, Persson et al (2007), de Sturm (1994, 1997), Sakamoto (2001, Hahm et al (1996), and Woo (2003). 6 For empirical tests of the effects budgetary institutions on fiscal outcomes, see de Haan and Sturm (1994), de Haan, Moessen and Volkerink (1999), Leachman et al (2007), Helland (2000), Lagona and Padovano (2007), Alesina et al (1999), Fabrizio and Mody (2006), Filc and Scartascini (2005), Berger et al (2007), Hallerberg and Marier (2004), and Perotti and Kontopoulos (2002). Eur J Law Econ (2010) 30:201-221 205 rarely been mentioned in studies of budgetary commons, despite their common conceptual origins.…”

Section: The Metaphor Of Budgetary Commons In the Existing Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Also, the incentives provided by the electoral systems are likely to mediate the effects that the size of governing majority may have on budgetary decision-making. In electoral systems where the cultivation of personal vote is prevalent (see, for example, Hallerberg and Marier 2004;Grofman and Reynolds 2001), fiscal discipline may be more difficult to maintain than in systems with stronger party discipline. 18 In sum, as mentioned above Ostrom (1986Ostrom ( , 2005Ostrom ( , 2007 repeatedly 16 Hence, in analysing the distributive politics on legislative budgetary commons, an important question is: Would distributive politics be characterised by minimum-winning coalitions or universalistic coalitions?…”

Section: The Pitfalls Of the Law Of 1/nmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They argued that the funds allocated from the general budget for a district-specific project would be presented by the legislators as 'benefits' to the constituencies in the district rather than 'costs'. 18 Hallerberg and Marier (2004) argue that proportional electoral systems with open lists (i.e., where voters can determine the order of the party's candidates on the list) are more conducive to personal vote than majoritarian systems. They argue that since the open-list system shifts the electoral focus from parties to individual representatives, the candidates have to appeal to voters in their home-district in order Eur J Law Econ (2010) 30:201-221 211 emphasises in her analytical and empirical works that it is important to take into account the configurational effects of different rules: a particular position rule in a polity (defining the number of participants) may have a different (or even an opposite) effect, depending on which other kinds of rules it is combined with.…”

Section: The Pitfalls Of the Law Of 1/nmentioning

confidence: 99%

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