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Discussion Paper Details

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Title: Liberals, Socialists, and pork-barrel politics in Greece

Author(s): Yannis Psycharis, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Vassilis Tselios

Publication Date: June 2016

Keyword(s): elections, Greece, pork-barrel politics, Public investment and regional policy

Programme Area(s): International Trade and Regional Economics

Abstract: This paper analyses the role of pork-barrel politics in the allocation of public investment expenditures in Greece. It proposes a model which explicitly relates the allocation of public investment to electoral results using a unique dataset covering the period from the restoration of democracy in 1974 until 2009, just before the Great Recession that radically transformed the political panorama of the country. The analysis includes ten legislative periods marked by governments of the two parties that dominated the political arena in Greece: the Liberal and the Socialist Party. The results show that Socialist and re-elected governments applied more expansionary fiscal policies relative to Liberals. The two main parties also used different tactics when it came to pork-barrelling: while the Socialists when in government rewarded/groomed their electoral fiefs, the Liberals invested in areas controlled by the opposition to win over new votes or seats.

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Bibliographic Reference

Psycharis, Y, Rodríguez-Pose, A and Tselios, V. 2016. 'Liberals, Socialists, and pork-barrel politics in Greece '. London, Centre for Economic Policy Research. https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=11319