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Copyright of Public Money & Management is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A political business cycle (PBC), with governments adjusting and timing economic policy for electoral gains, has long been hypothesized. A lack of data has so far limited testing of this phenomenon for government policies as opposed to fiscal outcomes such as tax revenue or government deficit, especially at the national level. We use new monthly data on tax reform announcements for a set of 22 democracies, 1988–2014, to test the PBC hypothesis for taxation. In addition to the traditional electoral strategy formulation of the PBC, we also put forward and test a capacity version of the PBC. We find evidence for the capacity version but not the traditional version of the PBC: tax reforms are less likely to be announced before elections and more likely after elections, independently of whether they are increases or decreases. Our evidence suggests that while a PBC exists, it may be less driven by strategic electioneering and more innocuous than previously assumed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the extent to which central bank independence can help to reduce political business cycles in Africa. Like previous studies, we find evidence of political cycles in our sample of 34 African countries for the period 1980–2018, but our findings show that politicians' ability to manipulate both fiscal and monetary policy depends on the degree of alliance between the fiscal authority and the monetary authority. Indeed, our analysis reveals that the political business cycle worsens when the central banker is an ally whereas a non‐ally central banker is associated with a decrease in the ability of the incumbent government to induce opportunistic political cycles, and this result holds, regardless of whether an African country is classified as a democracy or a dictatorship. In addition to that, despite the theoretical argument that political business cycles are unlikely to exist in dictatorships, we find evidence that both political budget and monetary cycles are prevalent in African dictatorships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Budget allocation and budget planning can be used in different ways. In addition, it can be part of a political budget cycle. Previous research has highlighted the political budget cycle’s existence in European countries, demonstrating its impact on public revenue and expenditure near elections. However, citizens often lack awareness of this phenomenon, underscoring the need for vigilant scrutiny. In addition, elected politicians increasingly rely on voters for support, targeting them during budget allocation and election campaigns. In Latvia, the mayors have a role in budget planning because they work full-time and are the head of the financial commission. In Latvia, despite a lack of trust in local politicians, there is a tendency for most of the mayors to be re-elected. The article aims to examine what kind of role the council’s chairperson has in the local government’s budget allocation process and what factors affect the budget allocation process in Latvia. The article’s scope encompasses the years 2009 to 2017, spanning two election terms (2009-2013; 2013-2017), and focuses on eight state cities in Latvia, excluding the capital city, Riga. Notably, local governments with a higher percentage of council members from the mayor’s party tend to exhibit higher expenditure levels. The findings of this study suggest that various socio-economic and political factors impact the financial performance of local governments in Latvia. These results underscore the significance of population and unemployment in shaping local government expenditures. Simultaneously, this research has highlighted the importance of political factors such as the majority in the local government and time spent in the mayor’s position. Moreover, it reveals that long-serving mayors and a majority in the council also influence budget allocation decisions. This article’s implications can guide policymakers in making informed decisions regarding municipal budget expenditures and revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recognition that government officials have politically motivated incentives to pursue new infrastructure construction at the expense of infrastructure upkeep, no prior research directly addresses how political incentives affect road maintenance separate from road construction. This paper investigates how local political incentives affect local road maintenance using unique data on completed road maintenance projects and difference-in-differences which leverages exogenous timing of mayoral elections. Since residents complain about damaged roads and can also be frustrated by travel delays caused by road maintenance, it is theoretically ambiguous how elected officials manipulate road maintenance, assuming they do so for political purposes. We show local election cycles shift road maintenance timing and location. We provide evidence that maintenance follows different patterns in mayoral election years and that maintenance is shifted around sub-city geographic units based on those units' political similarity of registered voters. A mayoral election costs $90,623 in additional road-related costs, translating to $28,093,182 per election for large cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper examines the political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries using a sample of 91 countries from 1992 to 2019. Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs a pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) model with clustered standard errors at the country level. To address endogeneity issues, the authors also employ a two-step system generalized methods of moments model. Findings – The authors find clear evidence of political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries. The authors consistently find that incumbents increase total government spending, particularly in economic affairs, public services and social welfare, in the year before an election and the election year. In contrast, they contract spending in the year after an election. Research limitations/implications – Policymakers should be aware of the political budget cycles during election years. Promoting control of corruption and democracy helps to alleviate the effects of the political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries. Originality/value – The authors are among the first to explore the political budget cycles in emerging and developing countries by focusing on the total government spending and its main compositions, including expenditures on economic affairs, public services and social welfare. Besides, the authors also explore the conditioning effects of control of corruption, political ideology and democracy.

In this paper, we examine whether a political budget cycle exists in municipal governments that fall under tight financial and institutional regulation by senior orders of government. For other levels of government, there is evidence that politicians initiate popular programs in election years and delay the unpopular tax increases after the election. Using a sample of 444 Ontario municipalities, with few exceptions, no such evidence was found. The results are the same regardless of the length of the term (three or four year), municipal size (small, medium, or large), and the governance system (one or two-tier). The paper concludes with possible explanations as to why there are no opportunistic manipulations of municipal budgets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the strategic composition of Slovak municipalities' revenues and expenditures and the role of political budget cycles. We found that Slovak municipalities tend to have significantly higher capital revenues and capital expenditures in periods close to municipal elections. We also found strategic management of current expenditures and revenues depending on the time of municipal elections. We have controlled these estimations with several dimensions identified in the literature, from socio-economic variables to political characteristics of the incumbent mayors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to carry out an empirical verification of the occurrence of the political cycle in cities with poviat rights in Poland. Current challenges of local financial management, previous results of national and international research, and threats associated with various types of risks, including political risks, are the motivation for addressing this topic in the paper. The research was conducted using panel data analysis, and its results indicate the existence of a political budget cycle, the effects of which are reflected in the asset and financial situation of cities. The study used balance sheet data, which significantly distinguishes it from previous studies, both domestic and foreign. The results allow us to conclude that balance sheet information should find wider application in monitoring the security and stability of local government finances in Poland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Patronage is often considered a subtype of clientelism that arises through reciprocal arrangements between a politician and a citizen, where electoral support is rewarded with public employment. In Chile, there is evidence of clientelist practices at the municipal level. However, these studies have mainly had a qualitative focus. To complement these studies, this research aims to provide quantitative evidence using panel data and two-way fixed effects. Thus, we analyse the personnel hiring through the Mercado Público platform between 2009 and 2017 across the country’s 345 municipalities, finding evidence that support two hypotheses: (i) there is a political budget cycle, increasing spending by 14.9% during the election year and (ii) independent politicians spend less on hiring people than mayors who are militants of political parties, being this expenditure -9.8% less for independents than for the latter. These results seek to complement other research on clientelism and patronage in a context of the rise of independent politicians and citizen questioning of traditional political parties, as well as the relevance of public spending in local governments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides evidence on the effects of US and Chinese trade policies on the 2020 US presidential election. In response to a series of US tariffs imposed on Chinese goods, China imposed retaliatory tariffs, especially on US agricultural products, which largely affected Republican‐leaning counties. The US government then subsidized US farmers by providing direct payments through the Market Facilitation Program (MFP) to mitigate the Chinese retaliatory tariffs. Using the universe of actual county‐level MFP disbursement data, we document that MFP payments relative to the Chinese retaliatory tariff exposure were higher in solidly Republican counties, implying that the Trump administration allocated rents in exchange for political patronage. We also find that MFP payments outweighed the estimated impact of Chinese retaliatory tariffs and led to an increase in the Republican vote share in the 2020 presidential election. Finally, we uncover evidence that China's retaliatory trade policy and the corresponding US agricultural policy exacerbated political polarization in the US, especially the rural–urban divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recycling and the recovery of waste are crucial waste management strategies. In light of the new European Union (EU) circular economy approach, these strategies remain core pillars of a competitive and sustainable waste value chain. Local governments have an important role in controlling and checking the implementation of waste management policies. We study the spatial determinants of waste recovery using a dataset of 102 Italian provinces from 2001 to 2014. To induce a possible source of exogenous variation, we exploit the political cycle of the provinces to isolate the impact of waste recovery in neighbouring provinces on its own province's waste recovery. We find that after the transposition of the 2008 EU Waste Framework Directive, provinces mimic their own neighbours in the separate collection of waste aimed at recycling and recovery. This effect is more pronounced during pre-electoral years than non-pre-electoral ones, and fully guided by provinces where the president can run for re-election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Public Money & Management is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This study analyzes the impact of the gender composition of political institutions on the political budget cycle (PBC) and on the size and structure of public expenditure. An instrumental variable approach is implemented to evaluate the influence of female politicians in municipal councils. The introduction of gender quotas for Italian municipalities is used as an exogenous variation in female participation in politics. The results show that: (i) fluctuations in local public spending are only slightly affected by the presence of a wider female representation; (ii) an increase in the number of elected women reduces the overall amount of public expenditure; (iii) this reduction involves fields typically affected by PBC (e.g., roads' maintenance) except those related to females' needs (e.g., kindergarten, primary education, and social care). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The focus of this study is electoral accounting practices employed by mayors in municipalities in a selected, exemplary region in a post-socialist country – the Lodz region in Central Poland. The goal is to identify characteristics of pork-barrel mayors responsible for municipal investment expenditures: their terms of office, partisan affiliation, and gender. The generalised method of moments was applied to estimate the impact that the electoral accounting practices of mayors had on municipal investment expenditures. All 177 municipalities in the Lodz region were investigated, from 2003 until 2019. Contrary to expectations, it was found that electoral accounting was practised by next-term and independent mayors rather than first-term or party-affiliated ones.

This work aims to characterize the optimal time path of a political business cycle model adapted to fiscal policy restrictions currently applied in Brazil. In this model, the incumbent seeks to maximize his utility, that is a weighted sum of the utility of voting support and the disutility of deviations from the ideal allocation of social spending. The voting function has been separated into two components: the government's attrition and its approval, which varies positively with the increase in health and education expenses, whose proportion was used as a restricted control. The model's solution, using the optimal control technique, provides the optimal trajectories of social spending and the government's voting intentions. Also are stated the sufficient conditions to result in a lower allocation of social expenditures at the beginning of the term, with an initially decreasing and later increasing voting intention, in accordance with the results in the empirical literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Farm debt waivers which are meant to be a one-time settlement of loans have become common in India. This paper finds, after controlling for variables related to farming distress, that the timing of waiver announcements by state governments between 2001-02 and 2018–19 is associated with the timing of elections. This points toward a pattern of policy manipulation that suggests election-year targeting of the largest special interest group in India, namely farming households. The debt waivers, either announced as policies by incumbent governments prior to upcoming elections or as election pledges by political parties which are fulfilled after winning elections, are unanticipated shocks to government revenue expenditure. We find that the waivers are associated with an increased revenue deficit, which is accommodated by a nearly 1/3rd cut in capital outlay to control the fiscal deficit, given the presence of a fiscal rule. Given its path dependence, lower capital expenditure also reduces the quality of government spending in subsequent years. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to test the Political Budget Cycle (PBC) in Indonesia as one of the world's largest democracies, specifically testing the presence of PBC across types of local government expenditures. This study further analyzed the effect of changes in expenditure composition during election years on financial local government losses. The financial losses are defined as irregularities in regional finance management found in the Audit Board of The Republic of Indonesia (BPK) audit report. This study uses the data at the district and city levels (local expenditures and financial losses) from 2014 to 2019 and adopts a fixed-effect panel data specification. The empirical estimations show the following evidence: (1) PBC phenomenon occurs in Indonesia, especially on government grants (belanja hibah), expenditure on goods and services, and capital expenditures; (2) There was no difference in PBC behavior between a region having an incumbent running for re-election and a region with incumbents from the previous election; (3) The existence of PBC tend to increase local government (financial) losses.

Copyright of Amme Idaresi Dergisi is the property of Public Administration Institute for Turkey & the Middle East (TODAIE) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper exploits the political cycle of Italian municipalities to test for the presence of strategic interactions in the collection of local taxation. The revenue from the personal income tax surcharge—a tax tool of low salience—is (positively) plagued by political manipulation and is found to be a strategic complement, but only when mayors run for re-election, a finding consistent with the yardstick competition hypothesis. More salient fiscal tools, such as property tax and user fees and charges, are also (negatively) affected by budget cycles, but they do not appear to be spatially correlated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate whether the presence of fiscal rules might limit the insurgence of a Political Budget Cycle (PBC) in investment spending at municipal level. Data based on the balance sheets of Italian municipalities are explored for the period 1999–2012. We investigate the effect of the Domestic Stability Pact (DSP) and rely on the fact that, since 2001, this tax rule has not been binding for municipalities with under 5,000 inhabitants. Our main contribution consists of exploiting this quasi-experimental setting by means of a difference-in-discontinuities estimation strategy in order to obtain unbiased estimates. In comparison with existing results, our study makes three observations. Firstly, the easing of fiscal rules generates an increase in capital expenditure only in the year immediately before elections. Secondly, this increase only arises for those investments which produce immediately-visible effects. Finally, the size of the electoral cycle shows a 136 percent increase in these investments which is more than five times larger than that reported in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Amme Idaresi Dergisi is the property of Public Administration Institute for Turkey & the Middle East (TODAIE) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Objective: From the political budget cycle (PDC) lens, we investigated the behavior of committed expenditures, investment spending and borrowing in the electoral period, in Brazilian municipalities with a population of 50,000 or more, in the period 2000-2016, comprising 353 clusters and 6001 observations. It was also investigated whether these municipalities meet the legal requirements on the use of budget resources in an election year. The study was motivated by the lack of consensus in the literature on the subject in question. Methodology: Four research hypotheses were built to assist in achieving the proposed objectives. Data were collected from IBGE, TSE and STN websites. Data were analyzed using the balanced panel data method, grouped by municipality and region, with Tobit regression application and Hausman, Breusch-Pagan Lagrange and F de Chow robustness tests. This method covered confidence with the interval of 99%, 77%, 79% and 84% explaining behavior between the variables. Results: The results show that there were no changes in expenditure committed before, during and after the election period, regardless of party equality and two-round election, unlike the results of some studies. As for spending on investments and borrowing in the election period, the study suggests an average increase of 9% and 68% respectively, and this is more intense when there is party equality between municipal and state governments, especially in the process of reelection. Regarding compliance with legal requirements on the use of budgetary resources in an election year, the study indicates that local governments do not comply with regulatory requirements. Contributions of the study: contributes to the specific literature, because it presents robust results on the lack of consensus on the subject in question, as well as for future research involving municipalities with smaller population and comparison between regions and countries.

This paper aims to detect the presence of political budget cycles (PBuCs) around presidential elections in four large Latin American countries (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico) over the 1982-2014 period, in the framework of democratic regimes. Extended autoregressive models are estimated for total public expenditure and their chief components, considering the effect of economic fluctuations. Among the most important findings, weak evidence of PBuCs was found in the case of Argentina and Chile, while in the case of Mexico and Colombia, post-electoral adjustments in budget items sensitive to political manipulation were found, such as subsidies and public works, along with pre-electoral increases in total expenditure in the former one, and in goods and services in the latter.

Objective: From the political budget cycle (COP) lens, we investigated the behavior of committed expenditures, investment spending and borrowing in the electoral period, in Brazilian municipalities with a population of 50,000 or more, in the period 2000-2016, comprising 353 clusters and 6001 observations. It was also investigated whether these municipalities meet the legal requirements on the use of budget resources in an election year. The study was motivated by the lack of consensus in the literature on the subject in question. Methodology: Four research hypotheses were built to assist in achieving the proposed objectives. Data were collected from IBGE, TSE and STN websites. Data were analyzed using the balanced panel data method, grouped by municipality and region, with Tobit regression application and Hausman, Breusch-Pagan Lagrange and F de Chow robustness tests. This method covered confidence with the interval of 99%, 77%, 79% and 84% explaining behavior between the variables. Results: The results show that there were no changes in expenditure committed before, during and after the election period, regardless of party equality and two-round election, unlike the results of some studies. As for spending on investments and borrowing in the election period, the study suggests an average increase of 9% and 68% respectively, and this is more intense when there is party equality between municipal and state governments, especially in the process of reelection. Regarding compliance with legal requirements on the use of budgetary resources in an election year, the study indicates that local governments do not comply with regulatory requirements. Contributions of the Study: contributes to the specific literature, because it presents robust results on the lack of consensus on the subject in question, as well as for future research involving municipalities with smaller population and comparison between regions and countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new test of Tiebout sorting that relies on the exogenous time structure of recurrent local elections. The test is based on the idea that competitive elections represent periodic perturbations to the Tiebout equilibrium of local public good provision and allocation of households to communities, so that their schedule should affect the timing of households' sorting decisions. On the other hand, internal migration flows that have nothing to do with the demand for public goods over which localities vote recurrently ought to be orthogonal to the timing of elections in a reduced-form migration equation. I exploit the staggered schedule of mayoral elections in Italy to analyze migration, elections, and public budget data across several thousands of municipalities, and find evidence of a systematic influence of the electoral calendar on the timing of sorting decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Are the incentives to expand expenditure before local elections affected by the composition of local governments' revenues? We explore this issue by exploiting the Italian government bill that in 2008 replaced the municipal tax on main residence with a vertical transfer. Relying on staggered dates of municipal elections to identify the effect of the reform, we find evidence of a political budget cycle, but only for municipalities that in 2008 were in their pre-electoral year. The result suggests that a lower degree of municipal tax autonomy strengthens the incentives to expand the size of the budget before the elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Carta Económica Regional is the property of Universidad de Guadalajara and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ensayos - Revista de Economía is the property of Ensayos Revista de Economia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Management of the expenditure public and cycles political budget: The case in the city councils of the Region West of Mexico Resumen Este trabajo tiene por objetivo medir la influencia del ciclo político presupuestario en la composición del gasto público de los municipios del occidente de México, concretamente, si los gobernantes utilizan las políticas de gasto expansionistas para tratar de influir en las decisiones de voto de los electores y, en ese caso, qué gastos son las preferidos para tratar de conservar el poder. La estimación se realizó utilizando el modelo Arellano y Bond (1991), que proponen un estimador basado en el Método Generalizado de Momentos (GMM), que utiliza variables instrumentales basadas en retardos y diferencias de todas las variables del modelo. Los resultados muestran que los gastos preferidos por los gobernantes antes de las elecciones son, incrementos en el gasto total por habitante, gasto en inversión y una contracción del gasto corriente en relación al gasto total, limitado a variables te carácter presupuestario. Abstract This study aims to measure the influence of the political budget cycle in the composition of public expenditure of the municipalities in the western part of Mexico, specifically, if rulers used the expansionist spending policies to try to influence the decisions of voters vote and, if so, what expenses are the preferred to try to retain power. The estimate was made using the model Arellano and Bond (1991), which proposed an estimator based on the method generalized of moments (GMM), using instrumental variables based on delays and differences of all the variables in the model. The results show that preferred by the rulers before the election expenses are increases in total spending per capita, investment spending and a contraction of current expenditure in relation to the total expenditure, limited to variables you budgetary character.

In the international literature, the public financial policies during the election periods are examined within the scope of 'Public Choice Theory' and 'Political Budget Cycles'. According to this, there is a periodical change in expenditure and tax policies starting from a certain period before the elections and returning to the old level again after a certain period of time following the elections. The existence of such cyclical fluctuations has been tried to prove in a significant part of the academic literature and in the empirical studies in Turkey, as well. As distinct from the others, with this research, not only cyclical but permanent effects are emphasized by legislative acts that have come into force from the result of populist political decisions taken in the election periods and by some of the promises given to the electorates. Accordingly, it has been tried to prove statistically that elections have had a lasting impact on public expenditures as in Peacock - Wiseman Hypothesis. Similarly, due to the fact that some election promises are put into force months after the elections and some developments specific to Turkey; models that examine cyclical movements that start before the elections and end after the elections are inadequate to explain the effects of the elections on public finance. In addition, it is emphasized that within the scope of political economy theory, the relation between public finance policies and elections should not necessarily be cyclical; so, according to 'Partisan Theory', it is emphasized that the ruling parties can make populist (targeted) expenditures on voters who are close to themselves in the whole of the ruling periods. In the light of the findings of the first two parts of the research, in the last part, some evaluations are made about the 2018 Turkey elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract A shortage of physicians in local public hospitals is often a heated political issue. When local politicians have the authority to intervene in the management of a public hospital, they may increase the employment of physicians during election years in order to alleviate the shortage. We test this hypothesis empirically using a census of city hospitals in Japan from 2002 to 2011 (N = 4583). Our results support the hypothesis that the number of physicians increases in election years. This effect is stronger in cities with a greater population of elderly residents. We also find that physicians tend to come from university hospitals in the same region. Overall, this paper provides direct evidence of political intervention on physician employment. Highlights • A shortage of hospital physicians was a heated political issue in Japan. • We examine how the timing of mayoral elections affected local public hospitals in Japan. • The number of physicians increased in election years. • The effect was stronger in cities with a greater population of elderly residents. • We find that physicians came from university hospitals in the same region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Political budget cycles in democracies have been extensively analyzed, but few studies of non-democracies exist. This paper explores political budget cycles in China's provinces. Using data from Chinese provinces from 1980 to 2006, the analysis finds that the effects of a provincial leader's tenure on political budget cycles are minimal, implying a weak causal relationship between spending composition and a politician's time in office at the provincial level. However, there exists a national coordinated cycle associated with the timing of the National Congress of the Communist Party (NCCP). Two years prior to the NCCP, politicians are likely to shift public spending toward capital expenditures, such as innovation funds and capital construction, and away from current expenditures, such as agricultural subsidies. The opposite pattern occurs during the year of the NCCP, when politicians increase current expenditures, such as social expenditures and government administration, and decrease capital expenditures. The increased capital expenditures 2 years prior to the NCCP are accompanied by an increase in taxation and total aggregate spending. The empirical results indicate that provincial budget cycles are mainly driven by national policies rather than by provincial leaders' personal career incentives. Chinese leaders' fiscal behaviors are constrained by the dynamics of the national leadership transition, resulting in similar distortions to those found in the democratic countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]