Electoral Budget Cycles Under Non-Democratic Regimes

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This paper investigates the relationship between elections and central government budget balance in countries that are considered to be non-democratic. Using a sample consisting of unbalanced panel data from 29 countries between 1960 and 2006, the essay provides evidence that electoral budget cycles do exist under non-democratic regimes. The relationship between elections and central government budget balance is significant and robust to a number of variations in control variables, estimation models, sample selection criteria and designations of election year dummy. The essay also provides evidence that the persistence of the relationship is driven by countries that are less distant from democracy (i.e. shallow autocracies).