Political budget cycles: The case of the Western German Lander

This paper focuses on the issue of the electoral and ideological cycles in state government budget for the eleven Western German Lander. We verify thi s hypothesis over the period 1974-1994 for the following budgetary variable s: total expenditures, surplus/deficit, administration, health care, educat ion, roads and social security benefits. While overall our results seem to show that generally the party variable does not play a systematic role in s pending decisions, they provide some support to the opportunistic cycle the ory showing that the only relevant phenomenon is the effect of the upcoming election on the government spending inclinations.