Political cycles in public expenditure: butter vs guns

This paper explores, theoretically and empirically, how governments may use the trade off between social and military expenditure to advance their electoral and partisan objectives. Three key results emerge. First, governments tend to bias outlays towards social expenditure and away from military expenditure at election times. Second, the size of this tradeoff is larger when we exclude countries involved in conflict, where national security plays an important role on voter choice. Third, while certain categories of social expenditure are higher during left administrations, military expenditure is higher during right administrations. Journal of Comparative Economics 45 (2017) 582-604. Department of Politics and International Studies, Social Sciences Building, The University of Warwick, Coven try, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom; Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, 9 Map pin Street, Sheffield, S1 4DT, United Kingdom; Department of Economics, University of Sheffield, 9 Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 4DT, United Kingdom. (C) 2016 Association for Comparative Economic Studies. Published by Elsevier Inc.