Political Cycles in Latin America: More Evidence on the Brazilian Economy

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47872/laer.v30.28

Keywords:

Political cycles, monetary policy, fiscal policy, Oaxaca model, Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model

Abstract

This paper aims to shed additional light on the existence of opportunistic and partisan political-business cycles in the Brazilian economy over the 1996-2016 period. To that end, it relies on two different approaches: (I) an Oaxaca model in the spirit of Blinder and Watson (2016); and (II) a DSGE model where fiscal and monetary policies are treated as political- regime dependent (Milani, 2010). By and large, our results from both exercises show that there existed an opportunistic behavior by all the governments studied as regards fiscal policy, and that political ideology played a role in shaping macroeconomic policies in some of the administrations that ran the country within the time span considered. Specifically, as our DSGE exercise illustrates, President Dilma Rouseff’s fiscal management differed significantly from previous governments’. In ad­dition, we do not find any evidence of political business cycle of any type when it comes to monetary policy, in line with what the consensus in this literature states for the case of Brazil.

References

Alesina, A., & Roubini, N. (1992). Political cycles in OECD economies. The Review of Economic Studies, 59, 663-688.

Alesina, A., Cohen, G. D. & Roubini, N. (1992). Macroeconomic policy and elections in OECD democracies. Economics & Politics, 4, 1-30.

Araújo, C. H. V. & Ferreira, P. C. G. (1999). Reforma tributária, efeitos alocativos e impactos de bem-estar. Revista Brasileira de Economia. 53, 133-166.

Bittencourt, J. L. & Hillbrecht, R. O. (2003). Ciclo Político na Economia Brasileira: um Teste para a Execução Orçamentária dos Governos Estaduais-1983/2000. In Anais do XXXI Encontro Nacional de Economia.

Blinder, A. S. & Watson, M. W. (2016). Presidents and the US Economy: An econometric explo¬ration. American Economic Review, 106, 1015-45.

Bonomo, M. & Terra, C. (2005). Elections and exchange rate policy cycles. Economics & Politics, 17(2), 151-176.

Botelho, R. (2002). Determinantes do comportamento fiscal dos estados brasileiros. IPE/USP (Dissertação de mestrado).

Castro, M.R., Gouvea, S.N., Minella, A., Santos, R.C. & Souza-Sobrinho, N.F. (2015). SAM¬BA: Stochastic analytical model with a Bayesian approach. Brazilian Review of Econometrics, 35, 103-170.

Cavalcanti, M. A. F. H., & Vereda, L. 2010. Propriedades dinâmicas de um modelo DSGE com parametrizações alternativas para o Brasil. Ipea, Texto para Discussão, n 1588.

Costa Junior, C. J. (2016). Understanding DSGE models. Málaga: Vernonpress.

De Araújo, J. & Leite Filho, P. (2010). Ciclos político-econômicos: uma análise do comporta¬mento dos gastos públicos nos estados brasileiros no período de 1995 a 2008. In Anais do XXXVIII Encontro Nacional de Economia.

Drazen, A. (2000). The political business cycle after 25 years. NBER macroeconomics annual, 15, 75-117.

Ebeke, C. & Ölcer, D. (2013). Fiscal policy over the election cycle in low-income countries. IMF Working Papers. International Monetary Fund.

Fialho, T. M. M. (1997). Testando a evidência de ciclos políticos no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de Economia, 51, 379-390.

Gonçalves, C. E. S. & Fenolio, F. R. (2007). Ciclos eleitorais e política monetária: evidências para o Brasil. Pesquisa e planejamento econômico, 37, 465-487.

Hibbs, D. A. (1977). Political parties and macroeconomic policy. American Political Science Review, 71, 1467-1487.

Hibbs Jr, D. A. (1986). Political parties and macroeconomic policies and outcomes in the United States. The American Economic Review, 76, 66-70.

Kanczuk, F. (2002). Juros reais e ciclos reais brasileiros. Revista Brasileira de Economia, 56, 249-267.

Klein, F. A. (2014). Do Opportunistic and Partisan Fiscal Cycles Come Together?. In Anais do XL Encontro Nacional de Economia.

Lopreato, F. L. C. (2015). Aspectos da atuação estatal de FHC à Dilma. Texto para Discussão, Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA).

Marques Junior, L. D. S. (2013). A política econômica da reeleição e a deterioração da política fiscal no Governo Dilma. Indicadores Econômicos FEE, 41, 41-48.

Milani, F. (2010). Political business cycles in the new Keynesian model. Economic Inquiry, 48, 896-915.

Nakaguma, M. Y. & Bender, S. (2006). A emenda da reeleição e a Lei de Responsabilidade Fis¬cal: impactos sobre ciclos políticos e performance fiscal dos Estados (1986-2002). Economia aplicada, 10, 377-397.

Nakaguma, M. Y. & Bender, S. (2010). Ciclos políticos e resultados eleitorais: um estudo sobre o comportamento do eleitor brasileiro. Revista Brasileira de Economia, 64, 3-24.

Neumark, D. (1988) Employers’ discriminatory behavior and the estimation of wage discrimi¬nation. The Journal of Human Resources, 23(3), 279-295.

Nordhaus, W. D. (1975). The political business cycle. The Review of Economic Studies, 42, 169-190.

Preussler, A. P. & Portugal, M. S. (2002). Um estudo empírico dos ciclos político-econômicos no Brasil. Análise Econômica, 21, 179-205.

Rogoff, K. (1990) Equilibrium political budget cycles. American Economic Review, 80, 21-36.

Rogoff, K. & Sibert, A. (1988). Elections and macroeconomic policy cycles. The Review of Eco¬nomic Studies, 55, 1-16.

Sakurai, S.N. & Menezes-Filho, N. (2011) Opportunistic and partisan election cycles in Brazil: New evidence at the municipal level. Public Choice, 148(1–2), 233–247.

Shi, M. & Svensson, J. (2002). Conditional political budget cycles. CEPR Discussion Papers.

Schuknecht, L. (2000). Fiscal policy cycles and public expenditure in developing countries. Public Choice, 102, 113-128.

Vergne, C. (2009). Democracy, elections and allocation of public expenditures in developing countries. European Journal of Political Economy, 25, 63-77.

Videira, R. A. & Mattos, E. (2011). Ciclos políticos eleitorais e a interação espacial de políticas fiscais entre os municípios brasileiros. Economia Aplicada, 15, 259-286.

Downloads

Published

2021-11-04

Issue

Section

Regular articles

How to Cite

Political Cycles in Latin America: More Evidence on the Brazilian Economy. (2021). Latin American Economic Review, 30, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.47872/laer.v30.28

Similar Articles

1-10 of 25

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.