Using an extensive dataset covering all Portuguese local governments (308), this paper analyzes the determinants of municipal deficits and debt. The results clearly indicate the existence of a political budget cycle, but there is no evidence that fiscal policy is used strategically to condition...

The three year Fund-supported program that expired at end-June 2014 succeeded in stabilizing Portugal’s economy and restoring access to sovereign debt markets. Following the deep downturn of 2011–12, the economy has expanded in six of the last seven quarters, albeit at a moderate...

This paper discusses Portugal’s Tenth Review Under the Extended Arrangement. The short-term outlook has improved and program implementation remains on track, notwithstanding another adverse Constitutional Court ruling. Stronger domestic demand is supporting a pick-up in activity and lower...

We use a large and unexplored dataset covering all mainland Portuguese municipalities from 1979 to 2002 to evaluate the impact of political forces in the allocation of grants from the central government to local authorities. Empirical results clearly show that, besides variables that proxi local...

This paper analyzes the impact of economic conditions on voter turnout at Portuguese legislative and municipal elections. We use four extensive datasets to estimate an economic turnout model in which local economic variables are included in quadratic form, so that non-linear effects can be taken...

This paper analyses the presence of duration dependence in local governments’ tenure employing continuous and discrete-time duration analyses over a set of spells of time in office for the period 1979-2005. Our results show that the more time a party remains in office, the higher is the...

This paper analyzes the effects of voter turnout on the vote shares received by the incumbent government. A system of simultaneous equations is estimated using a panel dataset of 278 Portuguese municipalities, for the period 1979-2005, covering 10 legislative elections. The results indicate that...