How does democratization affect the composition of government expenditure?
How does democratization affect the composition of government expenditure?
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DOI：
10.1016/j.jebo.2017.03.004
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发表时间：
2017-05-01
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Okada, Keisuke
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Kotera, Go;Okada, Keisuke
本研究利用1972年至2010年间125个国家的数据，考察了民主化对政府支出规模和构成的影响。具体而言，我们不仅关注总支出，而且关注构成，我们采用政治制度的二分指数而不是得分指数。此外，我们构建了基于民主化浪潮的民主化工具，并进行工具变量估计以解决内生性问题。我们的结果表明，虽然民主化对总支出没有显著影响，但它增加了卫生支出。民主化降低了国防支出，但工具变量估计的结果并不显著。此外，考虑到民主化的时变效应，国防支出在政权更迭后立即开始下降，医疗支出在中期和长期内增加，而在政权更迭前它们没有显著变化。因此，虽然只关注总支出并不能揭示民主化的影响，但考虑政府支出的详细类别使我们能够理解民主化如何改变政府的行为。(C) 2017 Elsevier B.V.版权所有
This study examines the effects of democratization on the size and composition of government expenditure using the data of 125 countries between 1972 and 2010 at most. Specifically, we focus not only on the total expenditure but also on the composition, and we employ dichotomous indices of political regimes rather than score indices. Moreover, we construct instruments for democratization based on the democratization wave and conduct an instrumental variables estimation to address endogeneity problems. Our results show that while democratization does not have a significant impact on total expenditure, it increases expenditure on health. Democratization decreases expenditure on defense, although the result of the instrumental variables estimation is not significant. Furthermore, considering the time-varying effect of democratization, defense expenditure starts decreasing immediately after a regime change and health expenditure increases in the medium and long run, while they do not significantly vary before a regime change. Thus, while focusing only on total expenditure does not uncover the effects of democratization, considering detailed categories of government expenditure enables us to understand how democratization changes governments' behaviors. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.