Open AccessPOLITICAL BUDGET CYCLES IN THE EUROPEAN UNION – POST-COMMUNIST HERITAGE
Author(s) -
Michał Wielechowski
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
acta scientiarum polonorum. oeconomia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2450-047X
pISSN - 1644-0757
DOI - 10.22630/aspe.2018.17.2.28
Subject(s) - per capita , politics , european union , communism , political science , public expenditure , order (exchange) , economics , political economy , economic policy , public finance , sociology , law , demography , population , finance
We test the hypothesis that post-communist history affect election cycles in the European Union countries. We show that pre-election fiscal manipulation increase total public spending per capita by 1.9% and three specific spending categories, i.e. general public services, public order and safety, and economic affairs in Central and Eastern Europe democracies with post-communist roots. At the same time we observe no significant spending deviations in remaining EU Member States, except expenditure linked to environmental protection. Our results indicate cross-country heterogeneity of political budget cycles (PBCs) in the EU, conditional on political system history.