Budget institutions, politics and fiscal outcomes: Five essays on local government policy outcomes

Abstract

This thesis contains five empirical papers on policy outcomes in local government. Four of the papers are based on Norwegian data, while one is based on data from Danish local governments. Three of the studies on Norwegian local governments are based on recent data, while the forth is based on data from the mid-war period.

Fiscal policy outcomes in local governments have traditionally been understood as the result of maximizing behavior of a representative individual given the economic constraints. The literature is later extended by taking political institutions explicitly into account. In resent years, there has emerged a substantial literature providing evidence that the institutional setting of the decision-making process has consequences for the fiscal outcomes. Broadly speaking, these institutions embrace all the rules governing the decision made in the local governments.