Do Large Cabinets Favor Large Governments? Evidence from Swiss Sub-federal Jurisdictions

Arbeitspapier

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending and indebtedness in political economics. The more fragmented a government, the higher its spending, deficits and debt. In this paper we investigate to what extent this problem can be miti-gated by different fiscal or constitutional institutions. We distinguish between two variants of fragmented governments: cabinet size and coalition size. Theoretically, they both describe the degree to which the costs of spending decisions are internalized by individual decision-makers. In addition, we evaluate whether constitutional rules for executive and legislation as well as budget rules shape the size of government and how the different rules interact with fragmentation in de-termining government size. The empirical study of the role of fragmented governments for fiscal policy outcomes is based on a panel of the 26 Swiss cantons over the 1980-1998 period. The re-sults indicate that the number of ministers in the cabinet is negatively associated with fiscal disci-pline. Furthermore, the fiscal referendum does effectively restrict the fiscal commons problem, but less successfully than the budget rule.

Angaben zum Objekt

• Sprache: Englisch

Verweise und Beziehungen

• Erschienen in: Series: CREMA Working Paper ; No. 2004-15

Klassifikation und Themen

• Klassifikation: Wirtschaft ; Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination ; Comparative or Joint Analysis of Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Stabilization; Treasury Policy ; National Budget; Budget Systems
• Thema: Fragmentation ; Fiscal Policy ; Referendums ; Legislative Rules ; Budget Rules

Beteiligte, Orts- und Zeitangaben

• Ereignis: Geistige Schöpfung
• (wer): Schaltegger, Christoph A. ; Feld, Lars P.
• Ereignis: Veröffentlichung
• (wer): Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA)
• (wo): Basel
• (wann): 2004

Weitere Informationen

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/214301
• Letzte Aktualisierung: 10.03.2025, 11:42 MEZ