ABSTRACT

Local governments have powers to decide on various issues concerning the public services they provide, as well as on how to finance them. We believe that it is important to analyse the existence of Political Budget Cycles, since politicians may misuse this discretionary power by manipulating budget variables for electoral purposes. Specifically, we analyse the impact of electoral cycles on budget forecast deviations in revenues from fines, which are fairly discretionary, in municipalities of over 1,000 inhabitants during the period 2010–2016. Our findings show that revenues from fines are overestimated in all the years, although this overestimation is only significant, and much more pronounced, in the election year. Politicians are aware fines are not well-regarded by citizens, and may negatively affect the election results, so they prescribe a relaxation in the imposition of fines and reduce the revenue budgeted. Other factors that impact on deviations in revenues from fines are the mayor’s political ideology, political competition and population size.

摘要

地方政府有权决定与它们提供的公共服务有关的各种问题，以及如何为其提供资金。我们认为分析政治预算周期的存在很重要，因为政治家可能会为了选举目的而操纵预算变量来滥用这种自由裁量权。具体而言，我们分析了选举周期对 2010 年至 2016 年期间超过 1,000 名居民的城市的罚款收入的预算预测偏差的影响，罚款收入是相当可自由支配的。我们的研究结果表明，所有年份的罚款收入都被高估了，尽管这种高估只是在选举年显着，而且更为明显。政客们意识到罚款不受公民欢迎，可能会对选举结果产生负面影响，因此，他们规定放松罚款并减少预算收入。影响罚款收入偏差的其他因素是市长的政治意识形态、政治竞争和人口规模。