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Mandatory Spending, Political Polarization, and Macroeconomic Volatility

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  • Grechyna, Daryna
Abstract
Political polarization combined with political turnover have been shown to amplify economic fluctuations (Azzimonti and Talbert, 2014). This paper analyzes a fiscal policy institution capable of reducing the volatility caused by these political frictions. We introduce the distinction between mandatory and discretionary public spending in a political model of optimal fiscal policy. We show that different legislative nature of these components of government spending leads to a divergent impact of mandatory and discretionary spending on politically-driven macroeconomic volatility. Increasing the fraction of mandatory spending in total government spending reduces the volatility; increasing the fraction of discretionary spending has the opposite effect. The presence of the legislative requirements behind the changes in mandatory public spending can explain simultaneous rise in political polarization and decline in the U.S output volatility after the 1980s.

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  • Grechyna, Daryna, 2017. "Mandatory Spending, Political Polarization, and Macroeconomic Volatility," MPRA Paper 83452, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:83452
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    Cited by:

    1. Marina Azzimonti & Laura Karpuska & Gabriel Mihalache, 2023. "Bargaining Over Taxes And Entitlements In The Era Of Unequal Growth," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 64(3), pages 893-941, August.
    2. Zapal, Jan, 2020. "Simple Markovian equilibria in dynamic spatial legislative bargaining," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C).
    3. Nino Kokashvili & Irakli Barbakadze, 2020. "Does Polarized Political Environment Hamper Foreign Investors? The Evidence from Parliamentary Democracies," Scientific Annals of Economics and Business (continues Analele Stiintifice), Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, vol. 67(1), pages 45-73, March.
    4. Marina Azzimonti & Gabriel P. Mihalache & Laura Karpuska, 2020. "Bargaining over Taxes and Entitlements," NBER Working Papers 27595, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Hülya Eraslan & Kirill S. Evdokimov & Jan Zápal, 2022. "Dynamic Legislative Bargaining," Springer Books, in: Emin Karagözoğlu & Kyle B. Hyndman (ed.), Bargaining, chapter 0, pages 151-175, Springer.
    6. Marina Azzimonti & Laura Karpuska & Gabriel Mihalache, 2020. "Bargaining over Mandatory Spending and Entitlements," Department of Economics Working Papers 20-02, Stony Brook University, Department of Economics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    business cycles; optimal fiscal policy; mandatory and discretionary public spending; macroeconomic volatility; political economy; political polarization.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H11 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Structure and Scope of Government
    • H30 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - General
    • H40 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods - - - General

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