We examine the US state-level pattern of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) spending. We relate spending to (1) Keynesian determinants of countercyclical policy, (2) congressional power and dominance, and (3) presidential electoral vote importance. We find that the ARRA is, in...

We analyze how budgetary institutions affect government budget deficits in member states of the European Union during 1984–2003 employing new indicators provided by Hallerberg et al. (<CitationRef CitationID="CR21">2009</CitationRef>). Using panel fixed effects models, we examine whether the impact of budgetary institutions on budget...</citationref>

Procyclical government spending occurs when government expenditures increase at a faster rate than income in an economic upturn but fall at a faster rate in a recession. Voracity effects occur when competition for increased spending proves more effective as national income increases. Public...

A vast literature has established that governments may abuse policy instruments in order to enhance their popularity and thus their probability of reelection, resulting in political budget cycles. Yet do popular governments have the same incentives to boost their popularity through pre-electoral...

This paper investigates the presence of political budget cycles (PBCs) in the European Union using data from all 27 member states over the period 1997–2008, and explores their variability across countries and over time. Three basic results emerge: First, incumbent governments across the EU...