Suchergebnisse

"Häufig wird direkten Volksrechten vorgeworfen, dass sie einer erfolgreichen staatlichen Konsolidierungspolitik entgegenstehen. Aus diesem Anlass untersuchen die Autoren, wie unterschiedliche fiskalische Institutionen die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer erfolgreichen Konsolidierungspolitik beeinflussen. In einer Panelanalyse von 1981 bis 2001 betrachten sie zuerst Episoden einer restriktiven Fiskalpolitik und deren makroökonomische Auswirkungen. Danach analysieren sie die Determinanten einer erfolgreichen, d.h. langfristig nachhaltigen, Politik der Defizitreduktion. Es gibt keine empirische Evidenz, dass direkte Volksrechte einen negativen Einfluss auf die Wahrscheinlichkeit einer erfolgreichen Konsolidierungspolitik ausüben." (Autorenreferat)

The inability to implement economic reforms in efforts to improve the stagnant economic performance of Switzerland has been blamed on the political structures of direct democracy, federalism, & concordance, raising the cry for constitutional reforms to enable greater political leadership. Yet the strongly vertical checks & balances in place in Switzerland are intended to increase political competition to such a degree that the eventual decisions are oriented towards the needs of the citizens. Broad support is required to implement & maintain reforms, & the evidence indicates that direct democracy has positive economic effects at the canton level, with no persuasive argument provided for why it should have a negative impact at the national level. The Swiss federal structure offers opportunities for reform by spurring scientific & innovative processes. In addition, it has been shown that the size of the cabinet rather than the size of a coalition government has greater impact on fiscal policy. It is not a change in the checks & balances that is required, but rather adequate forms of economic policy reforms that can win the support of the citizens, without which rational & enduring reforms cannot be successful. References. L. Reed

Recent empirical literature has shown that the determination of intergovernmental grants is highly influenced by the political bargaining power of the recipient states. In these models federal politicians are assumed to buy the support of state voters, state politicians and state interest groups by providing grants. In this paper we provide evidence that the fiscal referen-dum reduces the reliance of states on matching grants received from the central government and thus the possibility of state interest groups and state bureaucrats to obtain more grants. If referendums are available, voters serve as a hard budget constraint.

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending and indebtedness in political economics. The more fragmented a government, the higher its spending, deficits and debt. In this paper we investigate to what extent this problem can be mitigated by different fiscal or constitutional institutions. We distinguish between two variants of fragmented governments: cabinet size and coalition size. Theoretically, they both describe the degree to which the costs of spending decisions are internalized by individual decision-makers. In addition, we evaluate whether constitutional rules for executive and legislation as well as budget rules shape the size of government and how the different rules interact with fragmentation in determining government size. The empirical study of the role of fragmented governments for fiscal policy outcomes is based on a panel of the 26 Swiss cantons over the 1980-1998 period. The results indicate that the number of ministers in the cabinet is negatively associated with fiscal discipline. Furthermore, the fiscal referendum does effectively restrict the fiscal commons problem, but less successfully than the budget rule.

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending and indebtedness in political economics. The more fragmented a government, the higher its spending, deficits and debt. In this paper we investigate to what extent this problem can be mitigated by different fiscal or constitutional institutions. We distinguish between two variants of fragmented governments: cabinet size and coalition size. Theoretically, they both describe the degree to which the costs of spending decisions are internalized by individual decision-makers. In addition, we evaluate whether constitutional rules for executive and legislation as well as budget rules shape the size of government and how the different rules interact with fragmentation in determining government size. The empirical study of the role of fragmented governments for fiscal policy outcomes is based on a panel of the 26 Swiss cantons over the 1980-1998 period. The results indicate that the number of ministers in the cabinet is negatively associated with fiscal discipline. Furthermore, the fiscal referendum does effectively restrict the fiscal commons problem, but less successfully than the budget rule.

Recent empirical literature has shown that the determination of intergovernmental grants is highly influenced by the political bargaining power of the recipient states. In these models federal politicians are assumed to buy the support of state voters, state politicians and state interest groups by providing grants. In this paper we provide evidence that the fiscal referendum reduces the reliance of states on matching grants received from the central government and thus the possibility of state interest groups and state bureaucrats to obtain more grants. If referendums are available, voters serve as a hard budget constraint.

The fiscal commons problem is one of the most prominent explanations of excessive spending and indebtedness in political economics. The more fragmented a government, the higher its spending, deficits and debt. In this paper we investigate to what extent this problem can be miti-gated by different fiscal or constitutional institutions. We distinguish between two variants of fragmented governments: cabinet size and coalition size. Theoretically, they both describe the degree to which the costs of spending decisions are internalized by individual decision-makers. In addition, we evaluate whether constitutional rules for executive and legislation as well as budget rules shape the size of government and how the different rules interact with fragmentation in de-termining government size. The empirical study of the role of fragmented governments for fiscal policy outcomes is based on a panel of the 26 Swiss cantons over the 1980-1998 period. The re-sults indicate that the number of ministers in the cabinet is negatively associated with fiscal disci-pline. Furthermore, the fiscal referendum does effectively restrict the fiscal commons problem, but less successfully than the budget rule.

Previous theoretical and empirical research has shown that policymakers have an incentive to centralize government activities in order to weaken the com-petitive pressure of fiscal federalism. We propose and test a positive model of fiscal federalism in which centralization is less likely to occur where budget referendums are possible. The reason for this result is that budget referendums reduce the extent to which pro-centralization regions can commit to a low level of spending delegating the centralization choice to elected poli-cymakers. In addition, it reduces the ability of higher level policy-makers to attract additional responsibilities in order to gain policy discretion. Empi-rical findings from a panel data analysis for Swiss cantons from 1980 to 1998 support this hypothesis.