What Makes Strong Federalism Seem Weak? Fiscal Resources and Presidential-Provincial Relations in Argentina

Benton, Allyson Lucinda

doi:10.1093/publius/pjn032

Cited by 41 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 7 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Provincial politicians, then, enjoy a large share of the political benefit of spending, yet pay only a small fraction of the political cost of taxation. 16 The description provided in this section draws from Jones et al (2000), Tommasi (2006), Spiller and Tommasi (2007), Benton (2008), and Ardanaz et al (2010).…”

Section: The Fiscal and Political Context Undergirding Argentine Fedementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Voters as Fiscal Liberals: Incentives and Accountability in Federal Systems

Jones

Meloni

Tommasi

2012

Economics & Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Most empirical evidence indicates voters penalize deficits and spending growth. Contrary to this dominant finding, a few recent studies conclude that voters reward public spending. We reconcile these conflicting findings, positing that the structure of fiscal federalism in countries like Argentina causes voters to reward fiscal expansion because they perceive that this extra spending at the margin is not financed by them, but rather by the nation at large. We provide evidence and microfoundations for the electoral connection implicit in this argument: voters reward public spending when they can pass the cost on to someone else (e.g., as in Argentina), and punish it otherwise (e.g., as in the United States).

show abstract

Section: The Fiscal and Political Context Undergirding Argentine Fedementioning

confidence: 99%

“… The description provided in this section draws from Jones et al. (), Tommasi (), Spiller and Tommasi (), Benton (), and Ardanaz et al. (). …”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Voters as Fiscal Liberals: Incentives and Accountability in Federal Systems

Jones

Meloni

Tommasi

2012

Economics & Politics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…16 The fact that electoral districts conform to provincial boundaries makes the province the locus of party competition and the base of political support for politicians and parties (De Luca, Jones and Tula, 2002;Benton, 2009). 17 As a consequence, Argentina's large national political parties have been born and have recently evolved in such a way that their national governing coalitions are best described as little more than (potentially volatile) confederate alliances between largely autonomous and quite powerful leaders of provincial party branches (Calvo and Escolar, 2005;Leiras, 2007).…”

Section: The Electoral and Partisan Connectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Federalism in Argentina: Implications for Governance and Accountability

2012

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. 1 Abstract * This paper contributes to an agenda that views the effects of policies and institutional reforms as dependent on the structure of political incentives for national and subnational political actors. The paper studies political incentive structures at the subnational level and the mechanisms whereby they affect national-level politics and policymaking at the national level in Argentina, a highly decentralized middle-income democracy, Argentina. The Argentine political system makes subnational political power structures very influential in national politics. Moreover, most Argentine provinces are local bastions of power dominated by entrenched elites, characterized by scarce political competition, weak division of powers, and clientelistic political linkages. Political dominance in the provinces and political importance at the national level reinforce each other, dragging the Argentine political and policymaking system towards the practices and features of its most politically backward regions. Terms of use: Documents inJEL classifications: H11, H70, H77, D72, D73, D78

show abstract

“…The nature of the struggle between the center and the provinces is not static. Presidential–provincial relations can be relatively cooperative and positive‐sum, or conflictive and zero‐sum, depending on whether the economy is expanding or stagnating, as Benton (2008) shows.…”

Section: Introduction: the Nature Of The Argentine Intergovernmental mentioning

confidence: 99%

Fiscal Federalism Amid Institutional Weakness: The Argentine Fiscal Pacts of the 1990s

Sánchez

2011

Latin American Policy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article provides a political‐economic evaluation of the Argentine federal fiscal system during the 1990s. It describes and analyzes the innovations made to the rules governing the intergovernmental fiscal game, with a focus on the important fiscal landmarks of that decade, namely the fiscal pacts of 1992, 1993, 1999, and 2000. The record shows that many of the reforms to the fiscal regime have involved extensive political horse‐trading and have been inefficient from an economic standpoint and that the level of players' compliance with fiscal pact clauses has been low. The main obstacle to crafting a more economically rational federal fiscal system rests on the overall institutional framework within which political exchanges take place. This weak institutional setting provides powerful incentives for players to focus on the short term and aggravates collective action problems by fostering a static and narrow conception of self‐interest, divorced from the overall (dynamic) coherence of the fiscal regime.

show abstract

What Makes Strong Federalism Seem Weak? Fiscal Resources and Presidential-Provincial Relations in Argentina

Cited by 41 publications

References 7 publications

Voters as Fiscal Liberals: Incentives and Accountability in Federal Systems

Voters as Fiscal Liberals: Incentives and Accountability in Federal Systems

The Politics of Federalism in Argentina: Implications for Governance and Accountability

Fiscal Federalism Amid Institutional Weakness: The Argentine Fiscal Pacts of the 1990s

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About