Government spending shocks are frequently identified in quarterly time-series data by ruling outa contemporaneous response of government spending to other macroeconomic aggregates. We provide evidence that this assumption may not be too restrictive for U.S. annual time-series data. -- Government...

This paper investigates the presence of political budget cycles (PBCs) in the European Union using a data set encompassing all 27 current member states over the period 1997-2008, and analyzes what may explain their variability across countries and over time. Conditioning on partisan...