Ideological polarization and government debt

Abstract Models of strategic debt predict that public increases with polarization, measured by the ideological distance between government and its likely successor. Conversely if voters are both short-termist also more to switch their vote for parties offering higher spending good provision when electorate is ideologically concentrated, then can fall dispersion preferences in electorate. Using time-varying polarization measures generated from ideology data party manifestos, we find a sizable statistically significant negative association levels OECD countries