期刊名称：HIER Discussion Paper Series / Harvard Institute of Economic Research
出版年度：2005
卷号：2005
出版社：Harvard Institute of Economic Research
摘要：Many countries, especially developing ones, follow procyclical fiscal polices,
namely spending goes up (taxes go down) in booms and spending goes down (taxes
go up) in recessions. We provide an explanation for this suboptimal fiscal
policy based upon political distortions and incentives for less-than-benevolent
government to appropriate rents. Voters have incentives similar to the “starving
the Leviathan” classic argument, and demand more public goods or fewer taxes to
prevent governments from appropriating rents when the economy is doing well. We
test this argument against more traditional explanations based purely on
borrowing constraints, with a reasonable amount of success
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