Behavior of budget expenditures during the election period: an analysis in panel data in the Brazilian municipalities

Abstract

Objective: From the political budget cycle (PDC) lens, we investigated the behavior of committed expenditures, investment spending and borrowing in the electoral period, in Brazilian municipalities with a population of 50,000 or more, in the period 2000-2016, comprising 353 clusters and 6001 observations. It was also investigated whether these municipalities meet the legal requirements on the use of budget resources in an election year. The study was motivated by the lack of consensus in the literature on the subject in question.
 Methodology: Four research hypotheses were built to assist in achieving the proposed objectives. Data were collected from IBGE, TSE and STN websites. Data were analyzed using the balanced panel data method, grouped by municipality and region, with Tobit regression application and Hausman, Breusch-Pagan Lagrange and F de Chow robustness tests. This method covered confidence with the interval of 99%, 77%, 79% and 84% explaining behavior between the variables.
 Results: The results show that there were no changes in expenditure committed before, during and after the election period, regardless of party equality and two-round election, unlike the results of some studies. As for spending on investments and borrowing in the election period, the study suggests an average increase of 9% and 68% respectively, and this is more intense when there is party equality between municipal and state governments, especially in the process of reelection. Regarding compliance with legal requirements on the use of budgetary resources in an election year, the study indicates that local governments do not comply with regulatory requirements.
 Contributions of the study: contributes to the specific literature, because it presents robust results on the lack of consensus on the subject in question, as well as for future research involving municipalities with smaller population and comparison between regions and countries.