Fiscal rules to tame the political budget cycle: Evidence from Italian municipalities

The paper provides evidence that fiscal rules can limit the political budget cycle. It uses data on Italian municipalities during the 2000s and shows that: 1) municipalities are subject to political budget cycles in capital spending; 2) the Italian sub-national fiscal rule (Domestic Stability Pact, DSP) introduced in 1999 has been enforced by the central government; 3) municipalities subject to the fiscal rule show more limited political budget cycles than municipalities not subject to the rule. In order to identify the effect, we rely on the fact that the domestic fiscal rule does not apply to municipalities below 5000 inhabitants. We find that the political budget cycle increases real capital spending by about 10–20 percent on average in the years prior to municipal elections and that municipalities subject to the DSP show a pre-electoral increase in capital spending which is only a quarter of the one of municipalities not subject to the rule.     

Tax policy and yardstick voting in Flemish municipal elections

Recent theoretical papers develop political agency models in which voters compare tax policy with that in neighbouring jurisdictions. In these yardstick competition models voters judge incumbents by comparing their policy with policy in neighbouring jurisdictions. This paper reports an analysis of municipal elections in Flanders during the period 1982 to 2000 and finds empirical evidence for yardstick voting. Incumbents are punished for higher tax rates. Importantly, the electoral punishment also depends on tax rates in neighbouring municipalities. Higher rates in neighbouring municipalities are favourable for the incumbents.     

REAL EXCHANGE RATE CYCLES AROUND ELECTIONS

We develop the implications of devaluation cycles for real exchange rates in a two-sector small open economy with a cash-in-advance constraint. Policy-makers are office-motivated politicians. Voters have incomplete information on the competence and the opportunism of incumbents. Devaluation acts like a tax, and is politically costly because it can signal the government is incompetent. This provides incumbents an incentive to postpone devaluations, and can lead to an overvalued exchange rate before elections. We compare the implied cycle of appreciated/depreciated exchange rates with empirical evidence around elections from Latin America.     

Incentives for budget discipline in the presence of elections

This paper presents a mechanism to mitigate the adverse consequences of the political budget cycle on social welfare. We use a simplified two-period version of Rogoff's [Rogoff, K., 1990. Equilibrium political budget cycles. American Economic Review 80, 21–36.] rational budget cycle model to address the normative issue of reducing the budget deficit in pre-electoral periods. A regulation consisting of a sanction scheme contingent on fiscal policy joint with a fixed transfer is shown to provide the appropriate incentives for budget discipline in the presence of elections.     

State politics,tuition, and the dynamics of a political budget cycle

This paper attempts to improve the understanding of political budget cycles by first identifying a previously undocumented cycle in tuition and required fees at public four-year institutions of higher education in the United States. I find that tuition and fees are 1.5 % lower during gubernatorial election years than in non-election years. No similar cycle is found in private tuition and fees. Using a newly constructed dataset, I then explore the variation in electoral competition in gubernatorial and state legislative elections within states over time to uncover the underlying electoral incentives creating the cycle. The results suggest that the tuition cycle is not designed to increase the reelection prospects of governors as standard theories would predict. I find that tuition decreases during gubernatorial election years as the reelection prospects of the incumbent governor increases. Instead, the evidence suggests that popular governors use lower tuition as political pork to expand party power in the state by capturing swing districts in concurrent state legislative elections. I find that the magnitude of the cycle increases with the level of competition in state house elections and that the effect is concentrated among those districts held by the opposition party, particularly if those opposition districts are populated with voters likely to be responsive to tuition as a policy lever. These results reveal important dynamics about party competition within states in the United States and suggest that the electoral incentives driving political budget cycles can be complex.     

ON THE DETERMINANTS OF LOCAL TAX RATES: NEW EVIDENCE FROM SPAIN

This article examines the determinants of local tax rates. For the two main local taxes in Spain—the property tax and the motor vehicle tax—we test the existence of tax mimicking, yardstick competition, and political trends in a sample of 2,713 municipalities. Using various spatial models, the results support the hypothesis of tax mimicking, with coefficients above 0.40. We also show the relevance of political variables such as the ideology of incumbents and political fragmentation. The fact that incumbents with weaker political support exhibit stronger mimicking behavior is interpreted as evidence in favor of yardstick competition. Finally, we find that incumbents mimic neighboring municipalities ruled by the same political party, confirming the political trends hypothesis. (JEL C31, H71, H77)     

Revenue decentralization,central oversight and the political budget cycle: Evidence from Israel

This paper examines whether revenue decentralization and direct external financial supervision affect the incidence and strength of political budget cycles, using a panel of Israeli municipalities during the period 1999–2009. We find that high dependence on central government transfers – as reflected in a low share of locally raised revenues in the municipality's budget – exacerbates political budget cycles, while tight monitoring – exercised through central government appointment of external accountants to debt accumulating municipalities – eliminates them. We also find that this pattern is predominantly accounted for by development expenditures. These results suggest that political budget cycles can result from fiscal institutions that create soft budget constraints: that is, where incumbents and rational voters can expect that the costs of pre-election expansions will be partly covered later by the central government.     

Political budget cycles and reelection prospects in Greece's municipalities

This paper considers the presence of political budget cycles in Greece's municipalities. We construct a new dataset from primary sources and we find strong evidence of pre-electoral manipulation through increased expenditures and excessive borrowing. We use a dynamic panel data approach producing evidence of opportunistic behavior in local government finances. Our results are robust in the face of a series of controls including mayors running for reelection, their political alignment with the central government, and prolonged terms. Moreover, the results are robust to the exclusion of small sized municipalities and to the restriction of the time range of our investigation to the post-Maastricht period. We also consider whether opportunistic policies influence incumbents' reelection prospects finding that increased expenditures and election year opportunistic excesses are electorally rewarding. Our findings provide a characterization of opportunistic public finance management in Greek municipalities where electorally motivated budgetary decisions appear impervious to the various municipal reform attempts.     

财产税、地方公共支出与房产价值的关联分析

基于财产税的受益税性质,财产税的资本化和房产价值负相关,地方公共支出和房产价值正相关.房产价值到底是降低、升高还是不变,则取决于财产税与地方公共支出的转换系数a及地方公共支出的效率系数b.从公共选择的视角看,人们会因为关心自身房产的价值而积极参与地方上的公共事务决策.基于以上,人们在选择居住社区时,将对地方公共服务带来的收益与税收负担成本进行权衡,并且会用"以脚投票"的方式来实现这一动态平衡过程.     

Who do you blame in local finance? An analysis of municipal financing in Italy

We study the effect of introducing a less transparent tax tool for the financing of local governments. A political agency model suggests that politicians with stronger re-electoral incentives would raise more tax revenues and use more the less transparent tax tool to enhance their probability of re-election. This prediction is tested by studying a reform that in 1999 allowed Italian municipalities to partially substitute a more accountable source of tax revenue (the property tax) with a less transparent one (a surcharge on the personal income tax of residents). Exploiting the existence of a term limit for mayors, we use a Difference in Difference approach, to estimate how mayors facing re-electoral concerns reacted to the introduction of the less transparent tax tool compared to mayors facing term limit. We find results in line with theory. We also show that the reduction in the property tax is larger in smaller municipalities and in municipalities with lower level of social capital. The normative implications are then discussed.     

房地产税收对商品房价格的影响研究

中国房地产市场的需求弹性小于供给弹性,政府对房产拥有者征税,税收负担其实更多地落在了购房者身上。中国现行的房地产税制对于稳定房地产市场,抑制过度投机,降低商品房价格的作用不明显。应改变住房需求弹性,在房地产保有环节征税,促进中国房地产市场的健康发展。     

The Effect of Political Alignment on Transfers to Portuguese Municipalities

I investigate if political alignment between central and local governments brings financial benefit to local governments, using financial data from Portuguese municipalities (1992–2005). I use regression discontinuity design to determine the effect of political alignment per se on transfers to municipalities. Municipalities aligned with the central government receive 19% more targetable transfers than unaligned municipalities. I test for electoral motivation of this transfer bias: extra transfers increase the vote share of incumbents in local elections for one of the two Portuguese major parties; however, municipal incumbency does not lead to better results in national elections.     

Political budget cycles: Do they differ across countries and why?

This paper uses a large panel data set to examine the relation between elections and fiscal policy. We find evidence of political budget cycles: on average, government fiscal deficit increases by almost 1% of GDP in election years. Moreover, these political budget cycles are significantly larger, and statistically more robust, in developing than in developed countries. We propose a moral hazard model of electoral competition to explain this difference. In the model, the size of the electoral budget cycles depends on politicians' rents of remaining in power and the share of informed voters in the electorate. Using suitable proxies, we show that these institutional features explain a large part of the difference in electoral budget cycles between developed and developing countries.     

The electoral migration cycle

This paper proposes a new test of Tiebout sorting that relies on the exogenous time structure of recurrent local elections. The test is based on the idea that competitive elections represent periodic perturbations to the Tiebout equilibrium of local public good provision and allocation of households to communities, so that their schedule should affect the timing of households' sorting decisions. On the other hand, internal migration flows that have nothing to do with the demand for public goods over which localities vote recurrently ought to be orthogonal to the timing of elections in a reduced-form migration equation. I exploit the staggered schedule of mayoral elections in Italy to analyze migration, elections, and public budget data across several thousands of municipalities, and find evidence of a systematic influence of the electoral calendar on the timing of sorting decisions.     

房产税未来能成为我国地方 财政收入的可靠来源吗

本文基于房地产行业近年来异军突起、畸形发展、房价高企的民生背景,探讨当前的房产税改革是否能够有效调控房地产市场,解决房价高企问题,纾解民生困局,最终化解财政风险、培育地方财政收入主要来源。研究过程表明,第一,鉴于房产税作为一种财产税的特殊性以及房地产市场的特殊复杂性,房产税改革过程本身就步履维艰。第二,我国社会经济、人口、城市化等因素的中长期发展,可能使房价丧失长期上涨的动力,从而使房产税丧失其未来成为地方税主体税种的基础和前提。     

Term limit extension and electoral participation. Evidence from a diff-in-discontinuities design at the local level in Italy

We study the effect of term limits on voter turnout in Italian local elections. Since 2014 the Italian law allows mayors in municipalities with a population size lower than 3,000 inhabitants to re-run for a third term, whereas mayors in cities with a number of residents above the cut-off still face a two-term limit. The introduction of the reform permits us to implement a difference-in-discontinuities design exploiting the before/after with the discontinuous policy change. We find that voters negatively react to the introduction of the reform: electoral participation decreases by about 5 percentage points in municipalities eligible to the treatment compared to municipalities in the control group. This negative effect is essentially driven by a decrease in the political competition. We also find that relaxing term limits does not improve the quality of politicians running for election.     

房地产税渐进改革路径*——基于税制要素设计的实证研究

在保持房地产市场平稳的前提下，使房地产税成为地方重要税种是中国房地产税改革的重要政策目标，但在高房价收入比背景下，这二者相互冲突。本文基于房地产税制要素设计和微观家庭数据测算，探讨中国房地产税的渐进改革路径及其影响，认为鉴于居民纳税能力受高房价收入比限制，房地产税可从低税率、高减免起步；伴随房价收入比收敛，逐步提高税率、降低减免。起步阶段，税制改革应重视居民纳税能力和纳税意愿，优先实现房地产市场平稳软着陆；在中长期，房地产税可逐步成为地方政府主体税种，起到完善税制和地方税体系、提升地方治理能力的作用。     

中国房地产周期与金融稳定

房地产周期与金融稳定息息相关。1998年以来的我国房地产周期置身于全球地产泡沫的危言之中,格外令人关注。本文首先分析了驱动本轮房地产周期的增长面、宏观面与制度面因素,并利用1992—2004年的季度数据进行计量分析,指出无论是房地产业发展还是房地产价格总水平,在今后较长时期内仍会呈稳中趋升的态势。文章进而指出,本轮房地产周期对金融稳定的影响主要体现在房地产信贷风险暴露、政府担保风险以及长存短贷的期限错配风险,并在此基础上提出相应的政策建议:努力解决银行业自身问题、规范地方政府行为以及有效监管外资进入中国房地产业。     

中国房地产保有环节的税制建设——基于城镇土地国有制条件下的分析

完善房地产保有环节的税收制度是健全中国地方税体系、促进房地产业健康发展的重要方面。在中国城镇土地国有制的条件下,对包括土地和房屋在内的房地产征收统一的物业税存在法理上的障碍。中国房地产保有环节的税收制度,必须立足于城镇土地国有制的背景,正确认识和处理土地出让金与房地产保有环节税收的关系,应将现行一次性收取的土地出让总成交价款分解为一次性收取的土地补偿金和分年度收取的土地年租金,在房地产保有环节建立以土地年租金和房产税为主体的地方财政收入制度体系。     

The Tax‐rate Elasticity of Local Business Profits

Local business profits respond to local business tax (LBT) rates that vary across municipalities. We estimate that a 1% increase in the LBT rate decreases the LBT base by 0.45%, based on the universe of German LBT return files, which include corporations and unincorporated businesses. However, the fiscal equalization scheme largely compensates municipalities for the loss in the LBT base when they increase the LBT rate. Our estimates suggest that using tax revenue data instead of tax return data, as commonly done in the literature, results in a significant bias of the elasticity away from zero.