Open AccessUM ESTUDO EMPÍRICO DOS CICLOS POLÍTICO-ECONÔMICOS NO BRASIL
Author(s) -
Athos Prates da Silveira Preussler,
Marcelo Savino Portugal
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
análise econômica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2176-5456
pISSN - 0102-9924
DOI - 10.22456/2176-5456.10740
Subject(s) - opportunism , economics , victory , business cycle , inflation (cosmology) , order (exchange) , fiscal policy , politics , government (linguistics) , macroeconomics , government spending , test (biology) , autoregressive integrated moving average , monetary economics , political science , finance , time series , market economy , linguistics , philosophy , physics , theoretical physics , welfare , law , paleontology , machine learning , biology , computer science
The political business cycle theory suggests that economic fluctuations can be explained by the electoral calendar. Knowing that economic performance has great influence in the electorate vote decision, the incumbent may try to manipulate the economy policy in order to maximize the chances of victory of the government candidate. Empirical studies that aimed to test this hypothesis have found evidence of political opportunism as much on macroeconomic variables as on the political economy instruments. The present paper has the objective to test the hypothesis of political opportunism on macroeconomic variables, on fiscal policy instruments and interest rates in Brazil between 1980 and 2000. The econometric tests we will use autoregressive integrated moved average models (ARIMA) with intercept dummy variables in the months that precede the elections. The results confirm the hypothesis of political opportunism in the inflation rate and in the total expenditure of the federal government.