Economic Opportunist or Partisan Political Cycles? An empirical approach for Brazilian municipalities between 2000 and 2012

Abstract

This paper investigates the occurrence of Political Business Cycles (PBC) in the Brazilian municipal elections between 2000 and 2012, taking as reference the classical theories of CPE and their derivations. It empirically analyzes the influence of public expenditures, income level and geographic region on re-election of mayors and party successions, to determine which theoretical model best applies to the case of Brazilian cities, whether Opportunist or Partisan. The econometric strategy comprises the application of two Probit models, a panel with random effects and a binary structured as a panel (pooled). It concludes that there is evidence that Opportunistic Political Cycles occur in the Brazilian municipalities during the analyzed period.

Keywords

• Political Business Cycles
• Re-election
• Party succession
• Public spending
• Municipal elections