Partisan-Electoral Cycles in Public Employment: Evidence from Developed Democracies

Abstract

According to both early empirical findings and theoretical expectations of partisan preferences, left-wing parties in government ought to prefer higher levels of public employment for both ideological and opportunistic reasons. In contrast, using country-fixed effects in a panel of 22 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, this article finds no evidence of left-wing governments systematically increasing public employment. However, there is evidence that left-wing governments increase public employment in election years, which gives rise to an opportunistic, partisan-electoral cycle in public employment. In line with the logic of core-voter targeting and political budget cycles, incumbent left-wing parties seem to increase the number of their potential core voters when they are needed most.

Fiscal performance of minority governments: New empirical evidence for OECD countries

“…CO2 emissions and public employment have not been shown to be influenced by minority/majority government in OECD countries(Garmann 2014a andAaskoven 2017). On pledge fulfillment and activities of minority governments see, for example,Ganghof et al (2012) andThomson et al (2017).…”

Does Public Sector Outsourcing Decrease Public Employment? Empirical Evidence from OECD Countries

“…For established OECD countries, lagged outsourcing expenditure on goods and services used by government are positively and lagged outsourcing expenditure on goods and services financed by government are negatively correlated with public employment.I have also estimated a dynamic panel data model including the lagged dependent variable. I applyBruno's (2005a and2005b) bias corrected least squares dummy variable estimator for dynamic panel data models with small N. 9 Inferences regarding the nexus between public employment and outsourcing expenditure do not change.Election-motivated politicians tend to increase public employment before elections to reduce unemployment(Dahlberg and Mörk 2011, Mechtel and Potrafke 2013, Aaskoven 2017, Chortareas et al 2017, Cahan 2018 and may have been less active in public sector outsourcing over the period 2009-2015 because citizens were sceptical about market-oriented policies after the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2007. I include an election year dummy variable that assumes the value one in parliamentary election years and the value zero in all other years of the legislative period.…”