Public spending decrease under military regimes

eezmeli — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 23:57:59 GMT

A study somewhat confirming Hoppe's assertions : "The politics of public spending in Latin America"

It is claimed that the public spending goes down as far as under pre-coup levels in the third year of military regimes.

I thought this is in line with Hoppe's theory that democarcies have a short time preference and therefore democratic governments try to get as much as they can fom the state's budget in the short time period they are in power. Military regimes (although they are also short lived) plan that they will be in power for a longer time since they don't have the risk of elections, and so they have a longer time preference and this is reflected in the public spending figures.

Just wanted to share this

General

Public spending decrease under military regimes