Does electoral accountability affect economic policy choices: evidence from gubernatorial term limits

Besley, Timothy ORCID: 0000-0002-8923-6372 and Case, Anne (1995) Does electoral accountability affect economic policy choices: evidence from gubernatorial term limits. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110 (3). pp. 769-798. ISSN 0033-5533

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

This paper analyzes the behavior of U. S. governors from 1950 to 1986 to investigate a reputation-building model of political behavior. We argue that differences in the behavior of governors who face a binding term limit and those who are able to run again provides a source of variation in discount rates that can be used to test a political agency model. We find evidence that taxes, spending, and other policy instruments respond to a binding term limit if a Democrat is in office. The result is a fiscal cycle in term-limit states, which lowers state income when the term limit binds.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://qje.oxfordjournals.org/
Additional Information:	© 1995 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Divisions:	Economics
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory J Political Science > JC Political theory
JEL classification:	D - Microeconomics > D7 - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making > D72 - Economic Models of Political Processes: Rent-Seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior
Date Deposited:	27 Apr 2007
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2024 22:00
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/1360

Actions (login required)

View Item