Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-04T09:18:16.787Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Globalization, Politics and Provincial Government Spending in Canada

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2006

Mark Pickup
Mark Pickup
Affiliation:
University of Oxford and University of Calgary
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Abstract. Using time series, cross-sectional econometric modelling, an analysis is made of competing political and economic determinants of Canadian provincial government fiscal policy during the 1980s and 1990s. It is determined that provincial government spending responses to trade liberalization are dependent upon the ideology of the government and conditioned by the degree of provincial unionization. When relatively high levels of unionization prevail, those governments that typically spend the most reduce total spending to a lowest common denominator. However, when unionization is low, provincial government spending responses to increasing trade openness is primarily compensatory. This is in contradiction to the “race to the bottom” theory. The contingent nature of the provincial government spending response to trade openness means that despite overall pressures for fiscal convergence, political, economic and regional factors continue to contribute to distinct provincial spending policies.

Résumé. Cet article utilise une modélisation économétrique transversale en série chronologique pour analyser les déterminants politiques et économiques en compétition au niveau de la politique fiscale du gouvernement provincial canadien durant les années 1980 et 1990. Il est établi qu'en termes de dépenses publiques, les réactions du gouvernement provincial face à la libéralisation des échanges sont tributaires de l'idéologie du gouvernement et déterminées par le niveau de syndicalisation provincial. Lorsque le niveau de syndicalisation est relativement élevé, ce sont les gouvernements provinciaux qui dépensent le plus qui réduisent leurs dépenses totales au plus bas dénominateur commun. Par contre, plus le niveau de syndicalisation est bas, plus les dépenses publiques face à la libéralisation des échanges sont principalement compensatoires. Cela vient contredire la théorie du “ nivellement par le bas ”. La nature conditionnelle de la réaction du gouvernement provincial en termes de dépenses publiques signifie qu'en dépit des pressions globales pour la convergence fiscale, des facteurs politiques, économiques et régionaux continuent de contribuer aux politiques de dépenses publiques distinctes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , December 2006 , pp. 883 - 917
Copyright
© 2006 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abizadeh, Sohrab and John Gray. 1992. “Politics and Provincial Government Spending in Canada.” Canadian Public Administration 35(4): 519–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Achen, Christopher. 2000. “Why Lagged Dependent Variables Can Suppress the Explanatory Power of Other Independent Variables.” Paper presented at the 2000 American Political Science Association annual meeting, UCLA.
Alesina, Alberto and Romain Wacziarg. 1998. “Openness, Country Size and Government.” Journal of Public Economics 69: 305–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Archer, Keith and Alan Whitehorn. 1990. “Opinion Structure Along New Democratic Party Activists: A Comparison with Liberals and Conservatives.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 23(1): 101–13.Google Scholar
Atkinson, Michael and Gerald Bierling. 1998. “Is There Convergence in Provincial Spending Priorities?” Canadian Public Policy 24(1): 71–89.Google Scholar
Banting, Keith, George Hoberg and Richard Simeon. 1997. Degrees of Freedom: Canada and the United States in a Changing World. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Beck, Nathaniel and Jonathan Katz. 1995. “What to do (and not to do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data.” The American Political Science Review 89(3): 634–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beck, Nathaniel and Jonathan Katz. 2004. “Time-Series Cross-Section Issues: Dynamics, 2004.” Available at http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/politics/faculty/beck/beckkatz.pdf, April 20, 2006.
Blais, Andre, Donald Blake and Stephane Dion. 1993. “Do Parties Make a Difference? Parties and the Size of Government in Liberal Democracies.” American Journal of Political Science 37(1)(February): 40–62.Google Scholar
Blake, Donald. 1988. “Division and Cohesion: The Major Parties.” In Party Democracy in Canada, ed. George Perlin. Scarborough: Prentice-Hall.
Blake, Donald, R.K. Carty and Lynda Erikson. 1991. Grassroots Politicians: Party Activists in British Columbia. Vancouver: The University of British Columbia Press.
Boix, Carles. 1998. Political Parties, Growth and Equality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Braumoeller, Bear. 2004. “Hypothesis Testing and Multiplicative Interaction Terms.” International Organisation 58: 807–20.Google Scholar
Cameron, David R. 1978. “The Expansion of the Public Economy: A Comparative Analysis.” The American Political Science Review 72(4)(December): 1243–61.Google Scholar
Cameron, David R. 1985. “The Growth of Government Spending: The Canadian Experience in Comparative Perspective.” In State and society: Canada in Comparative Perspective, ed. K. Banting. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Chandler, Marsha A. and William M. Chandler, eds. 1979. Public Policy and Provincial Politics. Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson.
DuPre, R. 1993. “The Evolution of Quebec Government Spending, 1867–1969.” In Canadian and Contemporary Approaches, ed. M.H. Watkins and H.M. Grant. Ottawa: Carleton University Press.
Evans, Robert G., Morris L. Barer, Steven Lewis, Michael Rachlis, Greg L. Stoddart. 2000. “Private Highway, One-Way Street: The Deklein and Fall of Canadian Medicare?” Available from the Centre for Health Services and Policy Research website, www.chspr.ubc.ca/hpru/pdf/2003d.pdf.
Forbes, H.D. 1987. “Hartz-Horowitz at Twenty: Nationalism, Toryism and Socialism in Canada and the United States.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 20(2): 287–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gagnon, Alain-G and Guy Lachapelle. 1996. “Quebec Confronts Canada: Two Competing Societal Projects Searching for a Legitimacy.” Publius: The Journal of Federalsi 26(3): 177–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Geoffrey. 1995. “Capital Mobility, Trade, and the Domestic Politics of Economic Policy.” International Organisation 49(4): 657–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Geoffrey. 1998. Partisan Politics in the Global Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Garrett, Geoffrey. 2001. “Globalization and Government Spending around the World.” Studies in Comparative International Development 35(4): 3–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Helliwell, John F. 1998. How Much Do National Borders Matter? Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
Horowitz, G. 1966. “Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation.” Canadian Journal of Economics & Political Science 32: 143–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Imbeau, Louis M. et al. 2000. “Comparative Provincial Policy Analysis: A Research Agenda.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 33(4): 779–804.Google Scholar
Imbeau, Louis M. et al. 2001. “Measuring Government Growth in the Canadian Provinces: Decomposing Real Growth and Deflator Effects.” Canadian Public Policy 27(1): 39–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kneebone, Ronald and Kenneth McKenzie. 1999. “The Characteristics of Fiscal Policy in Canada.” Canadian Public Policy 25(4): 483–501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Landon, Stuart and David L. Ryan. 1997. “The Political Costs of Taxes and Government Spending.” The Canadian Journal of Economics 30(1): 85–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, Timothy. 2003. In the Long Run We're All Dead: The Canadian Turn to Fiscal Restraint. Vancouver, BC: The University of British Columbia Press.
McAllister, James A. 1989. “Do Parties Make a Difference?” In Canadian Parties in Transition: Discourses, Organisation, and Representation, eds. Alain Gagnon and Brian Tanguay. Scarborough, ON: Nelson.
Ornstein, Michael and H. Michael Stevenson. 1999. Politics and Ideology in Canada: Elite and Public Opinion in the Transformation of a Welfare State. Montréal: McGill-Queen's University Press.
Petry, François et al. 1999. “Electoral and Partisan Cycles in the Canadian Provinces.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 32(2): 273–92.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 1996. “The New Politics of the Welfare State.” World Politics 48(2): 143–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plumper, Thomas, Vera Troeger and Philip Manow. 2005. “Panel Data Analysis in Comparative Politics: Linking Method to Theory.” European Journal of Political Research 44: 327–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ram, Rati. 1987. “Wagner's Hypothesis in Time-Series and Cross-Section Perspectives: Evidence from ‘Real’ Data for 115 Countries.” Review of Economics and Statistics 69(2): 194–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rodrik, Dani. 1998. “Why Do More Open Economies Have Bigger Governments?” The Journal of Political Economy 106(5): 997–1032.Google Scholar
Rodrik, Dani 1997. “International Trade and Big Government.” In International Trade and Finance, ed. Benjamin Cohen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Skogstad, Grace. 2000. “Globalisation and Public Policy: Situating Canadian Analyses.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 33(4): 805–28.Google Scholar
Swank, Duane. 1988. “The Political Economy of Government Domestic Expenditure in the Affluent Democracies.” American Journal of Political Science 32(4): 1120–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiseman, Nelson. 1988. “A Note on “Hartz-Horowitz at Twenty”: The Case of French Canada.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 21(4): 795–811.Google Scholar