Electoral Systems and Public Spending

By G. Milesi-Ferretti, Roberto Perotti, M. Rostagno. Social Science Research Network, 2002

764 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We study the effects of electoral institutions on the size and composition of public expenditure in OECD and Latin American countries. We emphasize the distinction between purchases of goods and services, which are easier to target geographically, and transfers, which are easier to target across social groups. We present a theoretical model in which voters anticipating government policymaking under different electoral systems have an incentive to elect representatives more prone to transfer (public good) spending in proportional (majoritarian) systems. The model also predicts higher total primary spending in proportional (majoritarian) systems when the share of transfer spending is high (low). After defining rigorous measures of proportionality to be used in the empirical investigation, we find considerable support for our predictions.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Political Science and International Relations

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1c1e9bd765556c0df139e00426e8bbdca85212c2

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Citations in the corpus

The Impact of Competition on Management Quality: Evidence from Public Hospitals (2015, neutral): “7 See also, for example, Persson and Tabellini (1999), Milesi-Ferretti et al (2002), Nagler and Leighley (1992) and Stromberg (2008).”
Can Budget Institutions Counteract Political Indiscipline? (2006, background): “6 Milesi-Ferretti et al. (2002) propose a ‘standardized’ measure of district magnitude, which corrects for the threshold number of votes to gain representation.”
Do elections affect the composition of fiscal policy in developed, established democracies? (2010, neutral): “Politicians in this system are more prone to cut geographically targeted public spending, such as investment, rather than transfers which are easier to target across social groups (see Persson and Tabellini 2002; Milesi-Ferretti et al. 2002).”
Public good provision under dictatorship and democracy (2009, background): “For empirical evidence on links between public good spending and variations in democratic institutions, see Lott and Kenny (1999), Persson and Tabellini (1999, 2000, 2004), Milesi-Ferretti et al. (2002) and Baqir (2002).”
Why Doesn't the US Have a European-Style Welfare System? (2001, neutral): “Interestingly, Milesi-Ferretti, Perotti and Rostagno (2000) show that the degree of proportionality of the electoral system affects transfers even controlling for measures of fragmentation.”
Does Foreign Aid Help (2006, background): “The regression could also include the proportion of population over 65, openness, or some measures related to the electoral system (Milesi-Ferretti, Perotti, and Rostagno 2002).”
On the Endogenous Allocation of Decision Powers in Federal Structures (2005, neutral): “2 For related models see also Ferretti and Perotti [14], Chari et al.”
Female voting power: the contribution of women’s suffrage to the growth of social spending in Western Europe (1869–1960) (2008, neutral): “8 and 9), Austen-Smith (2000 )a nd Milesi-Feretti et al. (2002) .”
Increasing Public Expenditure: Wagner’s Law in OECD Countries (2011, background): “This kind of studies, in general, focus on different single aspects, which are supposed to be the driving force of the overall government size with respect to GDP: trade openness (Rodrik, 1998), country size (Alesina and Wacziarg, 1998), degree of economic development (Easterly and Rebelo, 1993; Ste”
Do Democracies Have Different Public Policies than Nondemocracies (2004, background): “Milesi-Ferretti et al (2002) find public spending to be correlated with type of electoral system.”
Districting and Government Overspending (2001, neutral): “10 However, see recent work by Persson and Tabellini (2001) and Milesi-Ferretti, Perotti, and Rostagno (2002) on national electoral systems and the level and composition of government spending.”