Fiscal Policy, Legislature Size, and Political Parties: Evidence from State and Local Governments in the First Half of the 20th Century
Fiscal Policy, Legislature Size, and Political Parties: Evidence from State and Local Governments in the First Half of the 20th Century
复制标题
财政政策、立法机构规模和政党：来自 20 世纪上半叶州和地方政府的证据
作者：
Thomas W. Gilligan;J. Matsusaka
本文检验了世纪上半叶州和地方的财政政策是否取决于立法机构的席位数。我们发现，大的立法机构花了更多的，从财政公地/logrolling文献的“1/n法”所暗示的。同样的关系出现在世纪后半叶，因此似乎是系统的。我们还发现，只有上议院的规模才是重要的，这再次与战后的证据相一致。我们无法找到有力的证据表明支出取决于立法机构的党派构成。
This paper tests whether state and local fiscal policy depended on the number of seats in the legislature in the first half of the 20th century. We find that large legislatures spent more, as implied by the "Law of 1/n" from the fiscal commons/logrolling literature. The same relation appears in the latter half of the century, and therefore seems to be systematic. We also find—again consistent with postwar evidence—that only the size of the upper house was important. We are unable to find robust evidence that expenditure depended on the partisan makeup of the legislature.