"Like other recent studies, we find the existence of a political deficit cycle in a large cross-section of countries. However, we find that this result is driven by the experience of new democracies'. The strong budget cycle in those countries accounts for the finding of a budget cycle in larger...

We review research on political budget cycles across countries, including recent findings that they are a phenemenon of new democracies and are statistically insignificant in old, established democracies. We then consider what may account for this and review several hypotheses. Recent empirical...

We test conventional wisdom that good economic conditions and expansionary fiscal policy help incumbents get reelected in a panel of 74 democracies over 1960-2003. We find no evidence that deficits help reelection in any group of countries independent of level of development, level or age of...