The Dynamics of Public Investment under Persistent Electoral Advantage

This paper studies the effects of asymmetries in re-election probabilities across parties on public policy and its subsequent propagation to the economy. The struggle between opposing groups–that disagree on the composition of public consumption–results in governments being endogenously short-sighted: Systematic under investment in infrastructure and overspending on public goods arise, as resources are more valuable when in power. Because the party enjoying an electoral advantage is relatively less short-sighted, it devotes a larger proportion of government revenues to productive public investment. Political turnover, together with asymmetric policy choices, induces economic fluctuations in an otherwise deterministic environment. I characterize the long-run distribution of capital and show that output increases on average with political advantage, despite the fact that the size of the government expands as a percentage of GDP. Volatility, on the other hand, is non-monotonic in political power and is an additional source of inefficiency. JEL Classification: E61, E62, H11, H29, H41, O23