Democracy, Autocracy, and Fiscal Policy in Ordinary Times and in Crises

• In Event: Regime Type, Regime Evolution, Public Policy, and Human Development

Abstract

A mixed-method approach is used in this paper to analyze the impact of political regime form on taxing and spending. A large-N quantitative analysis explores whether democracies and autocracies differ systematically on fiscal policy, disaggregating political regimes by income level (low-income, middle-income, and high-income). A medium-N analysis then explores qualitatively whether, to what extent, and in what ways governments in democratic regimes differ from governments in autocratic regimes in their propensities to apply the fiscal lessons learned from one economic crisis to subsequent economic crises, comparing how governments in twelve Asian countries applied the fiscal policy lessons learned from the Asian financial crisis of 1997 to the economic crisis associated with the recent Covid-19 pandemic.

Authors

• Nisha Mukherjee Bellinger, Boise State University

• Byunghwan Son, George Mason University