In this paper I test two models of strategic debt behavior. The general idea is that if a government anticipates the possibility of defeat in the next election it will try to use the debt strategically in order to influence the policy of its successor. Previous empirical studies have either...

A long-standing issue in political economics is whether party control makes a difference in determining fiscal and economics policies. This question is very difficult to answer empirically since parties are not randomly selected to govern political entities. This paper uses a...