Eleições e desempenho macroeconômico na América Latina (1979-1998)

• Autor(a) principal: Borsani,Hugo
• Data de Publicação: 2001
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Dados - Revista de Ciências Sociais
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0011-52582001000300002
• topic: elections; government behavior; economics; political institutions

This article presents an analysis of the different theoretical models for the relationship between elections and economics, as well as econometric tests applied to GDP and employment trends in Latin American democracies from 1979 to 1998. Considering that a government’s possibilities for pushing its policy objectives forward depends on its agenda power, the article analyzes the majority versus minority nature of governments, seeking to define the political conditions that favor a level of macroeconomic evolution in keeping with the objective of maintaining power. On the one hand, the results of empirical tests show a post-electoral deterioration of target indicators, as predicted by theoretical models. On the other hand, greater economic dynamism in election years is observed more frequently in governments with a majority in the legislature, a characteristic of the political system generally associated with greater macroeconomic policy efficiency, but also a condition favoring electoral manipulation of policy.