| Despite a large literature on political cycles, many theories and empirical results conflict with one another. I address this disconnect through three interrelated contributions. I first conduct an extensive quantitative survey of the political budget cycle literature through a meta-analysis. I find that overall there exists a positive, though substantively small political budget cycle effect. Second, I examine how incumbents may use alternatives to fiscal manipulation, such as the passage of redistributive policies, since these send a key signal to voters. Third, I examine how incumbents may not only time fiscal manipulation, but control their placement spatially. This ties in the political budget cycle literature with the literature on distributive politics. Although these findings call into question some of the existing views of political budget cycles, they show that cycles manifest themselves in alternative fashions. |
