Fiscal policy institutions and history
- David Cuberes Vilalta
- Andrew Mountford
Year of publication: 2012
Issue: 2
Pages: 1-11
Type: Working paper
Abstract
This paper shows that historical variables can explain a significant part of discretionary government spending across countries. We argue that these results provide evidence in favor of Besley and Persson’s (2009) hypothesis that institutional quality or state capacity is historically determined and further that institutional quality determines, in part, economic policy.