Political budget cycles and social security budget increases in the Republic of Ireland, 1923-2005

Cousins, Mel (2007): Political budget cycles and social security budget increases in the Republic of Ireland, 1923-2005.

Abstract

This paper examines social security increases in Ireland as a case study of the existence of political budget cycles in European countries. Ireland is an appropriate country to examine, first because it has a system of proportional representation and some studies suggest that proportional electoral systems are associated with expansions of welfare spending both before and after elections. Second, it is generally recognised that Irish political parties occupy the middle ground in terms of political ideology. Again studies would suggest that an absence of a strong ideological commitment to particular policies may make political budget cycles more likely. Utilising the distinctive nature of the public expenditure process in relation to welfare budget increases, this article examines the issue of whether or not a political budget cycle can be seen in Ireland in relation to social security expenditure. It draws a number of conclusions as to the existence and incidence of political budget cycles in an Irish context and also looks at whether political budget cycles have succeeded in their apparent objective i.e. securing election for the relevant political party.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Institution: Glasgow Caledonian University
• Language: English
• Keywords: Political budget cycle; welfare state; social security; public expenditure; Ireland
• Subjects: I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I3 - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty > I38 - Government Policy ; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs; H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H55 - Social Security and Public Pensions; H - Public Economics > H5 - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies > H53 - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs

References

Akhmedov, A. and E. Zhuravskaya, 2004. ‘Opportunistic political cycles: test in a young democracy setting’ Quarterly Journal of Economics, 119(4), 1301-38. Alesina, A., G.D. Cohen and N. Roubini, 1991. Macroeconomic policy and elections in OECD democracies, NBER working paper 3830. Andrikopoulos, A., I. Loizides and K. Prodromidis, 2004. ‘Fiscal policy and political business cycles in the EU’ European Journal of Political Economy 20 (1), 125-52. Asutay, M., 2004 .’Searching for opportunistic political business cycles in Turkey’, conference paper, European public choice society, Berlin. Benoit K. and M. Laver, 2003, ‘Estimating Irish party policy positions using computer wordscoring: the 2002 Elections’ Irish Political Studies, 18(1), 97-107. Benoit K. and M. Laver, 2005 ‘Mapping the Irish policy space: voter and party spaces in preferential elections’ Economic and Social review 36(2), 83-108. Benoit K. and M. Laver, 2006, Party policy in modern democracies. London: Routledge. Bew, P. and H. Patterson, 1982. Seán Lemass and the making of Modern Ireland 1945-66, Dublin: Gill and MacMillan. Bittencourt, J. L. and R. O. Hilbrecht, 2002. Ciclo politico na economia Brasileria: um teste para a execuão orçamentária dos governos estaduais - 1983/2000, proceedings of the XXXIst. Brazilian Economics Meeting. Brender, A. and A. Drazen, 2004. Political budget cycles in new versus established democracies, NBER working paper 10539. Brender, A. and A. Drazen, 2006, “Political Implications of Fiscal Performance in OECD Countries”, in Franco, D., ed., Proceedings of the 8th International Public Finance Workshop, Banca d’Italia. Bristow, J.A. and A.A. Tait, 1968 Economic Policy in Ireland, Dublin: IPA. Bruhn, K., 1996. ‘Social spending and political support: the ‘lessons’ of the national solidarity program in Mexico,’ Comparative Politics, 28 (2) 151-77. Buti, M. and P. Van De Noord, 2003. Discretionary fiscal policy and elections: the experience of the early years of EMU, OECD economics department working paper 351. Carty, R. K. (1981) ‘Brokerage and Partisanship: Politicians, Parties and Elections in Ireland’ Canadian Journal of Political Science / Revue canadienne de science politique, Vol. 14, No. 1 53-81 Cousins, M., 2003. The birth of social welfare in Ireland, 1922-1952, Dublin: Four Courts Press. Dion, M., 2000. ‘The political economy of social spending: the Mexican solidarity programme, 1988-1994’ Estudios Sociologicos, 18, 53, 000. Drazen, Allan, 2001. ‘The political business cycle after 25 years’ NBER macroeconomics annual 2000, Cambridge : MIT Press. Ebbinghaus ‘How the cases you choose limit the questions you ask’ paper presented at the European Consortium of Political Reserarch, Marburg. Eslava, M., 2005. Political budget cycles or voters as fiscal conservatives? Evidence from Colombia, working paper CEDE 2005-12. Gallagher, M. and M. Laver, 1993. How Ireland voted 1992, Dublin: Folens. Gallagher, M., M. Marsh and P. Mitchell, How Ireland voted 2002. London: Palgrave. Galli, E. and S. Rossi, 2002. ‘Political Budget Cycles: The case of the western German lander,’ Public Choice 110 (3-4) 283-303. Gonzales, M. De Los Angeles, 2002. ‘Do changes in democracy affect the political budget cycle? Evidence from Mexico’ Review of development economics, 6 (2), 204-224. Hall, P.A. 2003, ‘Aligning ontology and methodology in comparative research’, in J. Mahoney and D. Rueschemeyer (eds.), Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Harrison, M. and Michael Marsh, 1998. ‘A re-examination of an Irish government popularity function’ Public Choice 94, 367-83. Komito, Lee. (1984) “Irish Clientelism: A Reappraisal.” The Economic and Social Review 15(3):173–194 Kraemer, M., 1997. Electoral Budget Cycles in Latin America and the Caribbean: Incidence, Causes and Political Futility, Inter American Investment Bank, working paper WP-354. Kwon, H. Y., 2001. ‘The politics of public spending in a ‘developmental state’: South Korea, 1987-1997’ conference paper, Yale University. Laver, Michael, P. Mair and Richard Sinnott, 1987. How Ireland voted: the Irish general election 1987. Dublin: Poolbeg. Lee, Joseph, 1985, Ireland 1912-85. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Magaloni, B., A. Diaz-Cayeros and F. Estevez, 2003. The erosion of party hegemony, clientelism and portfolio diversification: The Programma Nacional de Solidaridad (Pronasol) in Mexico, working paper, Stanford University. Marsh, M. 2006, ‘Anchoring a floating party system: party identification in Ireland,’ Electoral Studies, 25(3) 489-508. Marsh. Michael and F. Kennedy, 2003 ‘Taking the credit and avoiding the blame: parties and voting behaviour in Ireland 2002’. Paper presented at ECPR, Marburg, September. Medina, L. and D. Lema 2003. ‘Ciclos presupuestarios de origin electoral: El caso de las provinces argentines’ procedings of the XXXVIIIth. annual meeting of the AAER. Mink, Mark and Jakob De Haan, 2005. Has the stability and growth pact impeded political budget cycles in the European Union? CESifo working paper 1532. Mulas-Granados, C., 2004. ‘Voting against spending cuts: the electoral costs of fiscal adjustments in Europe’ European Union Politics 5(4) 467-93. O'Malley, Eoin and Matthew Kerby (2004) ‘Chronicle of a death foretold? understanding the decline of fine gael’ Irish Political Studies, Volume 19, Issue 1 , pages 39 – 58 Persson, T. and G. Tabellini, 1990. Macroeconomic Policy, Credibility and Politics, Chur: Harwood Academic Publishers. Persson, T. and G. Tabellini, 2002. Do electoral cycles differ across political systems?, IGIER working paper, Bocconi University. Puente, J. M. (2004) La economía political del gasto social en Venezuela’ revista del BCV, XVIII, 1. Remmer, K. L., 1993. ‘The political economy of elections at Latin America, 1980-1991’ American Political Science Review, 87 (000) 393-407. Schady, N. R., 2000. ‘The political economy of expenditures by the Peruvian social fund (FONCODES), 1991-95’ American Political Science Review, 94, 289-304. Shalev, M. ‘Limits of and Alternatives to Multiple Regression in Macro-Comparative Research’ Conference Paper, 2002. Shi, M. and J. Svensson, 2002a. Conditional Budget Cycles, CEPR discussion paper 3352. Shi, M. and J. Svensson, 2002b. Political budget cycles in developed and developing countries, IIES working paper, Stockholm University. Shi, M. and J. Svensson, 2003. ‘Political budget cycles: a review of recent developments,’ Nordic Journal of Political Economy, 29(1), 67-76. Tujula, M. and G. Wolswijk, 2004. What determines fiscal balances? An empirical investigation in determinants of changes in OECD budget balances, ECB working paper 422. Tutar, I. and A. Tansel, 2000. Political Business Cycles, Institutional Structure and Budget Deficits in Turkey, Economic research forum working paper 2019, Middle East Technical University. Van Dalen, H. P. and O. H. Swank, 1995. Government spending cycles: ideological or opportunistic? Erasmus University Rotterdam, research memorandum 9507. Von Hagen, J., 2003. Fiscal discipline and growth in Euroland: experiences with the stability and growth pact, ZEI working paper B06-2003. Warin, T. and K. Donahue The Stability and Growth Pact: a European answer to the political budget cycle? Middlebury College Economics Discussion Paper No. 06-06. Yarahuan, G. Pérez, 2003 ‘Social programs and electoral competition: the political economy of the Mexican National Fund for Social Enterprises (1992-200)’ conference paper, Dallas.