TY - JOUR
T1 - Voting suffrage and the political budget cycle
T2 - Evidence from the London Metropolitan Boroughs 1902-1937
AU - Aidt, Toke S.
AU - Mooney, Graham
N1 - Funding Information:
For financial support we thank the Centre for Quantitative Economic History (CQEH) at the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Trust (grants 044175 and 093961 ). Bill Luckin and Andrea Tanner collected data and made valuable suggestions at the early stages of the research. We are grateful to Thomas Lee for the excellent research assistance and to Jakob de Haan and Eli Anders for their helpful comments. The participants in the European Public Choice Society Meeting 2013 and the 2013 SSHA Annual Meeting in Chicago gave constructive feedback. Finally, we thank two reviewers and the co-editor for their very helpful advice. This maps presented in this article are based on data provided through EDINA UKBORDERS with the support of the ESRC and JISC and uses boundary material which is copyright of the Great Britain Historic GIS Project, Portsmouth University.
PY - 2014/4
Y1 - 2014/4
N2 - We study the opportunistic political budget cycle in the London Metropolitan Boroughs between 1902 and 1937 under two different suffrage regimes: taxpayer suffrage (1902-1914) and universal suffrage (1921-1937). We argue and find supporting evidence that the political budget cycle operates differently under the two types of suffrage. Taxpayer suffrage, where the right to vote and the obligation to pay local taxes are linked, encourages demands for retrenchment and the political budget cycle manifests itself in election year tax cuts and savings on administration costs. Universal suffrage, where all adult residents can vote irrespective of their taxpayer status, creates demands for productive public services and the political budget cycle manifests itself in election year hikes in capital spending and a reduction in current spending.
AB - We study the opportunistic political budget cycle in the London Metropolitan Boroughs between 1902 and 1937 under two different suffrage regimes: taxpayer suffrage (1902-1914) and universal suffrage (1921-1937). We argue and find supporting evidence that the political budget cycle operates differently under the two types of suffrage. Taxpayer suffrage, where the right to vote and the obligation to pay local taxes are linked, encourages demands for retrenchment and the political budget cycle manifests itself in election year tax cuts and savings on administration costs. Universal suffrage, where all adult residents can vote irrespective of their taxpayer status, creates demands for productive public services and the political budget cycle manifests itself in election year hikes in capital spending and a reduction in current spending.
KW - Local public finance
KW - London
KW - Opportunistic political budget cycles
KW - Suffrage
KW - Voting franchise
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84894715450&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84894715450&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.01.003
DO - 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2014.01.003
M3 - Article
C2 - 25843984
AN - SCOPUS:84894715450
VL - 112
SP - 53
EP - 71
JO - Journal of Public Economics
JF - Journal of Public Economics
SN - 0047-2727
ER -