Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T18:45:31.641Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Commitment Problems in Coalitions: A New Look at the Fiscal Policies Of Multiparty Governments*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2014

Hanna Bäck  and
Johannes Lindvall
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Many political scientists and economists have argued that coalition governments tend to accumulate more debt than single-party governments do, but the evidence for this proposition is mixed. This article argues that only some coalition governments are more likely to increase public debt than single-party governments: those in which parties are unable to make credible promises to their partners about future policy. It introduces the concept of ‘commitment potential’ within coalitions and proposes a way of measuring it. The study evaluates its theoretical claims using data on 20 advanced democracies observed over a period of almost 50 years. It finds that multiparty governments with high commitment potential do not, on average, accumulate more debt than single-party governments, but that governments with low commitment potential do.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 53 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2014 

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.)

Footnotes

*Hanna Bäck is Associate Professor of Political Science, Lund University, P.O. Box 52, 221 00 Lund, Sweden ([email protected]). Johannes Lindvall is Professor of Political Science, Lund University, P.O. Box 52, 221 00 Lund, Sweden ([email protected]). We are very grateful to Despina Alexiadou, Michael Becher, Marius Busemeyer, Robert Franzese, Peter Santesson, and the PSRM reviewers and editors for very helpful comments on previous versions of this article. We also wish to thank Holger Döring and Albert Falcó-Gimeno for their advice and support when generating the data used in the article. Hanna Bäck acknowledges support from the Research Center (SFB) 884 ‘Political Economy of Reforms’ (Project C3), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). Johannes Lindvall acknowledges support from the European Research Council (Starting Grant No. 284313). To view supplementary material for this article, please visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/psrm.2014.11

References

Abbas, S. Ali, Belhocine, Nazim, Ganainy, Asmaa El, Horton, Mark. 2010. ‘A Historical Public Debt Database’. IMF Working Paper 10/245.Google Scholar
Alesina, AlbertoDrazen, Allan. 1991. ‘Why Are Stabilizations Delayed?’ American Economic Review 81(5):1170–1188.Google Scholar
Alesina, AlbertoPerotti, Roberto. 1999. ‘Budget Deficits and Budget Institutions’. In Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, edited by James M. Poterba and Jürgen von Hagen, 13–36. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Armingeon, Klaus, Weisstanner, David, Engler, Sarah, Potolidis, Panajotis, Gerber, Marlène, Leimgruber, Phillip. 2011. ‘Comparative Political Data Set I 1960–2009’. Institute of Political Science, University of Berne.Google Scholar
Bäck, HannaDumont, Patrick. 2007. ‘Combining Large-n and Small-n Strategies: The Way Forward in Coalition Research’. West European Politics 30:467–501.Google Scholar
Bäck, HannaDumont, Patrick. 2008. ‘Making the First Move. A Two-Stage Analysis of the Role of Formateurs in Parliamentary Government Formation’. Public Choice 135:353–373.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bäck, Hanna, Lindvall, Johannes. 2011. ‘Coalitions, Time Horizons, and Policy Choices’. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association Seattle, WA, 1–4 September.Google Scholar
Bäck, Hanna, Müller, Wolfgang C., Nyblade, Benjamin. 2013. ‘Multiparty Government and Economic Policy-Making. Coalition Agreements, Prime Ministerial Power and Spending in Western European Cabinets’. Paper presented at the third annual EPSA conference, Barcelona, Spain, 20–22 June.Google Scholar
Bawn, KathleenRosenbluth, Frances. 2006. ‘Short versus Long Coalitions: Electoral Accountability and the Size of the Public Sector’. American Journal of Political Science 50:251–265.Google Scholar
Beck, NathanielKatz, Jonathan. 1995. ‘What to Do (And Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross Section Data’. American Political Science Review 89(3):634–648.Google Scholar
Beck, NathanielKatz, Jonathan. 2011. ‘Modeling Dynamics in Time-Series-Cross-Section Political Economy Data’. Annual Review of Political Science 14:331–352.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Haan, Jakob, Jong-A-Pin, RichardMiearau, Jochen O.. 2013. ‘Do Budgetary Institutions Mitigate the Common Pool Problem? New Empirical Evidence for the EU’. Public Choice 156:423–441.Google Scholar
de Haan, JakobSturm, Jan-Egbert. 1997. ‘Political and Economic Determinants of OECD Budget Deficits and Government Expenditures: A Reinvestigation’. European Journal of Political Economy 13(4):739–750.Google Scholar
de Haan, Jakob, Sturm, Jan-EgbertBeekhuis, Geert. 1999. ‘The Weak Government Thesis: Some New Evidence’. Public Choice 101:163–176.Google Scholar
De Winter, LievenDumont, Patrick. 2006. ‘Parties into Government: Still Many Puzzles’. In Handbook of Party Politics, edited by Richard S. Katz and William Crotty, 175–188. London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Döring, Holger, Manow, Philip. 2012. ‘Parliament and Government Composition Database: An Infrastructure for Empirical Information on Parties, Elections and Governments in Modern Democracies’. Version 12/10, accessed 15 October 2012.Google Scholar
Edin, Per-AndersOhlsson, Henry. 1991. ‘Political Determinants of Budget Deficits: Coalition Effects Versus Minority Effects’. European Economic Review 35(8):1597–1603.Google Scholar
Falcó-Gimeno, Albert. 2011. ‘Coalition Governance: Causes and Consequences’. PhD Thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain.Google Scholar
Falcó-Gimeno, Albert. 2012. ‘The Use of Control Mechanisms in Coalition Governments: The Role of Preference Tangentiality and Repeated Interactions’. Forthcoming in Party Politics 20(3):341–356.Google Scholar
Franklin, Mark N.Mackie, Thomas T.. 1983. ‘Familiarity and Inertia in the Formation of Governing Coalitions in Parliamentary Democracies’. British Journal of Political Science 13:275–298.Google Scholar
Franzese, Robert J. Jr 2002. Macroeconomic Policies of Developed Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hallerberg, Mark. 2004. Domestic Budgets in a United Europe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hallerberg, MarkBasinger, Scott. 1998. ‘Internationalization and Changes in Tax Policy in OECD Countries: The Importance of Domestic Veto Players’. Comparative Political Studies 31:321–352.Google Scholar
Hallerberg, Mark, Strauch, Rolfvon Hagen, Jürgen. 2007. ‘The Design of Fiscal Rules and Forms of Governance in European Union Countries’. European Journal of Political Economy 23:338–359.Google Scholar
Hallerberg, Markvon Hagen, Jürgen. 1999. ‘Electoral Institutions, Cabinet Negotiations, and Budget Deficits within the European Union’. In Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance, edited by J. Poterba and Jürgen von Hagen. 209–232. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Herndon, Thomas, Ash, Michael, Pollin, Robert. 2013. ‘Does High Public Debt Consistently Stifle Economic Growth? A Critique of Reinhart and Rogoff’. Unpublished paper, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.Google Scholar
Huber, Evelyne, Ragin, Charles, Stephens, John D., Brady, David, Beckfield, Jason. 2004. ‘Comparative Welfare States Data Set’. Northwestern University, University of North Carolina, Duke University and Indiana University.Google Scholar
Laver, MichaelShepsle, Kenneth. 1996. Making and Breaking Governments: Cabinets and Legislatures in Parliamentary Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lindvall, Johannes. 2010. ‘Power Sharing and Reform Capacity’. Journal of Theoretical Politics 22(3):1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, LannyStevenson, Randolph. 2001. ‘Government Formation in Parliamentary Democracies’. American Journal of Political Science 45(1):33–50.Google Scholar
Martin, LannyStevenson, Randolph. 2010. ‘The Conditional Impact of Incumbency on Government Formation’. American Political Science Review 104:503–518.Google Scholar
Martin, LannyVanberg, Georg. 2012. ‘Multiparty Government, Fiscal Institutions, and Public Spending’. Journal of Politics 75(4):953–967.Google Scholar
Nickell, Stephen J. 1981. ‘Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects’. Econometrica 49:1417–1426.Google Scholar
Nyman, Pär. 2012. ‘Politics or Perceptions? The Fiscal Consequences of Uninformed Policymakers’. Unpublished manuscript, Uppsala University.Google Scholar
Persson, Torsten, Roland, GerardTabellini, Guido. 2007. ‘Electoral Rules and Government Spending in Parliamentary Democracies’. Quarterly Journal of Political Science 20:1–34.Google Scholar
Persson, TorstenTabellini, Guido. 2003. The Economic Effects of Constitutions. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Persson, TorstenTabellini, Guido. 2006. ‘Electoral Systems and Economic Policy’. In The Oxford Handbook of Political Economy, edited by Barry R. Weingast and Donald A. Wittman, 723–738. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Persson, TorstenTabellini, Guido. 2009. ‘Democratic Capital’. American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics 1(2):88–126.Google Scholar
Reinhart, Carmen M.Rogoff, Kenneth S.. 2009. This Time It's Different. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Roubini, NourielSachs, Jeffrey. 1989. ‘Political and Economic Determinants of Budget Deficits in the Industrial Democracies’. European Economic Review 33:903–938.Google Scholar
Saalfeld, Thomas. 2008. ‘Institutions, Chance and Choices: The Dynamics of Cabinet Survival in the Parliamentary Democracies of Western Europe’. In Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining, edited by Kaare Strøm, Wolfgang C. Müller, and Torbjörn Bergman, 327–368. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scartascini, Carlos, Stein, ErnestoTommasi, Mariano. 2014. ‘Veto Players and Policy Adaptability’. Journal of Theoretical Politics 26:222–248.Google Scholar
Schaechter, Andrea, Kinda, Tidiane, Budina, Nina, Weber, Anke. 2012. ‘Fiscal Rules in Response to the Crisis—Towards the ‘Next-Generation’ Rules. A New Dataset’. IMF Working Paper 12/187.Google Scholar
Strøm, Kaare. 1994. ‘The Political Role of Norwegian Cabinet Ministers’. In Cabinet Ministers and Parliamentary Government, edited by Michael Laver and Kenneth A. Shepsle, 35–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Strøm, Kaare, Müller, Wolfgang C.Bergman, Torbjörn. (eds). 2008. Cabinets and Coalition Bargaining. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Strøm, Kaare, Müller, Wolfgang C.Smith, Daniel Markham. 2010. ‘Parliamentary Control of Coalition Governments’. Annual Review of Political Science 13:517–535.Google Scholar
Teorell, Jan, Samanni, Marcus, Holmberg, Sören, Rothstein, Bo. 2012. ‘The Quality of Government Dataset, version 6 April 2011’. The Quality of Government Institute, University of Gothenburg.Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George. 1995. ‘Decision Making in Political Systems: Veto Players in Presidentialism, Parliamentarism, Multicameralism, and Multipartyism’. British Journal of Political Science 25:289–326.Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George. 1999. ‘Veto Players and Law Production in Parliamentary Democracies’. American Political Science Review 93:591–608.Google Scholar
Tsebelis, George. 2002. Veto Players. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
von Hagen, JürgenHarden, Ian J.. 1995. ‘Budget Processes and Commitment to Fiscal Discipline’. European Economic Review 39(3–4):771–779.Google Scholar
Warwick, Paul V. 1996. ‘Coalition Government Membership in West European Parliamentary Democracies’. British Journal of Political Science 26:471–499.Google Scholar
Wehner, Joachim. 2010a. ‘Cabinet Structure and Fiscal Policy Outcomes’. European Journal of Political Research 49:631–653.Google Scholar
Wehner, Joachim. 2010b. ‘Institutional Constraints on Profligate Politicians: The Conditional Effect of Partisan Fragmentation on Budget Deficits’. Comparative Political Studies 43(2):208–229.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Bäck & Lindvall Datasets

Datasets

http://dx.doi.org/10.7910/DVN/27742
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Bäck and Lindvall Supplementary Material

Tables S1-S2

Download Bäck and Lindvall Supplementary Material(PDF)
PDF 107 KB
Supplementary material: File

Bäck and Lindvall Supplementary Material

Tables S1-S2

Download Bäck and Lindvall Supplementary Material(File)
File 3.9 KB