This thesis contributes to the public finance literature concerned with fiscal sustainability, and consists of an introduction and four stand-alone essays. The first three essays analyse the reasons why governments accumulate large levels of debt. In the first essay, I find that parties that implement fiscal consolidations are punished by the voters in the following election. However, there does not appear to be a rewarding effect for governments that implement fiscal expansions. The second essay, which is co-authored with Rafael Ahlskog, shows how voter opposition to fiscal consolidation is shaped by moral considerations and feelings of personal responsibility. More precisely, we argue that voters are more likely to refuse fiscal consolidation when they do not feel responsible for the public debt. The third essay argues that misperceptions about the business cycle would have caused fiscal problems even if policy-making was conducted by independent experts. According to my estimates, biased projections have weakened annual budget balances by approximately one per cent of GDP. In the fourth essay, I argue that budgetary mechanisms created to improve fiscal discipline have a bias toward a reduced public sector. Because discretionary decisions are usually required to adjust public expenditures to price and wage increases, periods of rapid growth have repeatedly caused the welfare state to shrink. I use the introduction to discuss the commonalities between the essays and to situate the field of public finance in a broader, historical context.

Researchers have found considerable evidence that information about school performance affects people's choices about which schools to send their children to and even where to live. In contrast, little attention has been paid to the effects of school performance information on people's political behavior. Yet Hirschman (1970) famously highlighted the importance of taking seriously not only economic forces, but also the role of "political mechanisms", that is, "non-market forces" or "voice", in analyzing people's responses to school performance and the implications of these responses for school outcomes. This dissertation explores the effect of information about student and school performance on people's political attitudes and behavior. I first present findings from an original dataset of school board elections in Florida that indicate that voters fail to punish school board incumbents in response to information signaling poor school performance. There is even evidence that voters sometimes reward incumbents for failure. I next analyze a dataset that links student test scores in England to a subsequent survey, and find that that informational signals about individual student performance can have long−lasting effects on parental behavior. Finally, I analyze the results of a survey experiment administered to a nationally representative sample of Americans, and find that information about the relative performance of local schools depresses average perceptions of local school quality and increases support for school reforms. / Government

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Submitted by Thiago de Lucena Coelho (t.delucena@gmail.com) on 2015-06-19T17:42:03Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Thiago_de_Lucena_Tese.pdf: 367276 bytes, checksum: c57cf9703134e20972975ba58cdc1abf (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br) on 2015-06-19T17:54:32Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Thiago_de_Lucena_Tese.pdf: 367276 bytes, checksum: c57cf9703134e20972975ba58cdc1abf (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-06-19T18:01:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Thiago_de_Lucena_Tese.pdf: 367276 bytes, checksum: c57cf9703134e20972975ba58cdc1abf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-05-18 / This paper purpose is to study the possible impact that emotional biases might have on voters’ judgements when we use a retrospective voting framework. In order to do so we use soccer as the instrument that may influence mood and emotions. Our fixed effect models show that wins on the election weekend are associated with a increase in incumbent voting, indicating that emotional biases (and soccer) may, in fact, influence voters. / O propósito deste estudo é analisar o possível impacto que um viés emocional possa ter nos julgamentos dos eleitores. Nesse sentido utilizamos o futebol como fonte exógena de um choque. O nosso modelo de efeitos fixos nos leva a concluir que vitórias de equipes no final de semana da eleição estão associadas a maior votação no incumbente indicando que um viés emocional pode influenciar o eleitor.

本研究分析在2005年台北縣長選舉中，民眾是否以回顧性評價或是展望性評估來決定其投票對象。運用2006年「台灣選舉與民主化調查」的研究資料，分析民眾對於過去的家庭經濟情況、社會整體經濟狀況評價及施政表現；以及民眾對於未來家庭經濟、總體經濟狀況評估及主要政黨候選人展望性預期，是否影響其投票行為。 本研究發現：控制民眾的人口學背景以及其他政治態度之後，民眾認為過去整體經濟情況變差者，愈不傾向投給民進黨候選人。認為民進黨候選人愈具備執政能力者則愈傾向投給他。除此之外，民眾的政黨認同也具有重要的影響力。 從本研究的結果可以得知，民眾會運用理性的標準，判斷過過去總體經濟表現與未來哪位候選人較具執政能力而決定其投票對象。顯示執政者應該以總體經濟表現以及優秀的人才，才可以吸引選民持續的支持。 / In this Study, we employ individual-level survey data collected by ‘Taiwan’s Election and Democratization Study” in the 2005 Taipei Magistrate election to examine whether voters apply retrospective voting or prospective voting. We include variables such as personal well-being and national economics performance in the past ,candidate evaluation and expectations on future economic performance to see how these variables might affect their voting behavior. We demonstrate that, after controlling demographic variables and other political attitudes, when voters consider national economy is worse off, he/she voted against the incumbent party. However, voters give greater support to candidates of the incumbent party if he/she believes this candidate is competent to govern Taipei county. Additionally, party identification still exerts a powerful influence upon the individual vote decision. In the study, it is found that people decide their voting behavior is employ their rational calculations to examine sociotropic economic performance and candidate quality. Therefore, citizens are not fools, and the incumbent party has to realize the importance of governance and nominate qualified candidates to govern.

The 2006 Swedish parliamentary election was a historic election with the largest bloc transfer of voters in Swedish history. The 2002-2006 incumbent Social Democratic Party (S) received its lowest voter support since 1914 as roughly 150,000, or 8%, of the 2002 S voters went to the main opposition, the conservative Moderate Party (M). This became the most decisive factor in ousting S from power after 12 years of rule. As a result, the M-led Alliance (A) with the People's Party (FP), the Center Party (C), and the Christian Democrats (KD) won the election. Natural Disasters and National Election makes the novel contribution of proposing two natural disasters, the Indian Ocean’s 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and 2005 Storm Gudrun (Erwin), which struck only two weeks following the tsunami, as major events that impacted government popularity in the 2006 election and contributed to the redistribution of voter support, within and across party-blocs. The core findings from this thesis show that the S government’s poor crisis response to Gudrun, which is the hitherto most costly natural disaster in Swedish history, alone has an estimated effect of a magnitude that likely contributed to the 2006 historic regime shift, while the tsunami also seems to have mattered. The tsunami is particularly interesting, as S’s poor international crisis response to the event constitutes the first natural disaster situation to knowingly have affected an election on the other side of the planet. Moreover, to some degree voters recognized the active opposition by C as effective representation and rewarded the party for its strong stance on the poor handling of both events by S. In fact, the active voice of C concerning these disasters likely helped move the party from the periphery of party politics to becoming the third-largest party in Swedish politics. In sum, this research investigates accountability and effective party representation via retrospective voting, which is an essential mechanism for the legitimacy of democracy. Findings suggest that the average Swedish voter indeed may be voting retrospectively to hold publically elected officials accountable, which suggest a healthy status of the retrospective voting mechanism and Swedish democracy.

Submitted by LEONARDO DA ROCHA LOURES BUENO (leobueno17@gmail.com) on 2018-03-27T19:46:32Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Defesa_vfinal_biblioteca.pdf: 939137 bytes, checksum: 7741971330ea7a2ea03895a755176467 (MD5) / Rejected by Pamela Beltran Tonsa (pamela.tonsa@fgv.br), reason: Boa tarde Leonardo, Para que possamos aprovar seu trabalho são necessários alguns ajustes conforme norma ABNT/APA. ESTRUTURA Capa (obrigatório)- Fonte: Arial / Tamanho da fonte: 12 Contra Capa - Fonte: Arial / Tamanho da fonte: 12 Ficha catalográfica/ Fonte: Arial / Tamanho da fonte: 12 ( Deve ser colocada exatamente como foi recebida da biblioteca, alterar apenas a numeração de pagina. Deixar as informações que estão fora do quadrado ) Folha de aprovação - Fonte: Arial / Tamanho da fonte: 12 - nesta folha NÃO tem SÃO PAULO 2018 - DEDICATÓRIA Fonte: Arial / Tamanho da fonte: 12 ( A PALAVRA DEDICATÓRIA DEVE SER MAIUSCULO/NEGRITO E CENTRALIZADO ) - Opcional - AGRADECIMENTOS - Fonte: Arial / Tamanho da fonte: 12 (A PALAVRA AGRADECIMENTO DEVE SER MAIUSCULO/NEGRITO E CENTRALIZADO ) - RESUMO (A PALAVRA RESUMO DEVE SER MAIUSCULO/NEGRITO E CENTRALIZADO): espaçamento simples (150 a 500 palavras), com palavras-chave (obrigatório). - ABSTRACT ( A PALAVRA ABSTRACT DEVE SER MAIUSCULO/NEGRITO E CENTRALIZADO ) em língua estrangeira . A numeração só pode aparecer a partir da Introdução (antes não pode ) Após os ajustes excluir o pdf já postado e submete-lo novamente para analise e aprovação. Qualquer duvida estamos a disposição, Att. Pâmela Tonsa on 2018-03-28T19:19:31Z (GMT) / Submitted by LEONARDO DA ROCHA LOURES BUENO (leobueno17@gmail.com) on 2018-03-29T14:12:16Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Defesa_vfinal_biblioteca.pdf: 942358 bytes, checksum: ac3e3e337b6b2ee8a38e6063f5e1f801 (MD5) / Rejected by Pamela Beltran Tonsa (pamela.tonsa@fgv.br), reason: Conforme conversamos, Favor corrigir e submeter novamente, att, Pâmela Tonsa on 2018-04-03T13:44:43Z (GMT) / Submitted by LEONARDO DA ROCHA LOURES BUENO (leobueno17@gmail.com) on 2018-04-03T18:36:46Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Defesa_vfinal_biblioteca.pdf: 941695 bytes, checksum: 9fb42a1ab359df982fcac220d17979c4 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Pamela Beltran Tonsa (pamela.tonsa@fgv.br) on 2018-04-04T22:57:01Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Defesa_vfinal_biblioteca.pdf: 941695 bytes, checksum: 9fb42a1ab359df982fcac220d17979c4 (MD5) / Rejected by Suzane Guimarães (suzane.guimaraes@fgv.br), reason: Prezado Leonardo, O título do seu trabalho que está na folha de rosto não confere com o título que está na ficha catalográfica, sendo assim é necessário fazer a correção e submeter o arquivo novamente. No pedido da ficha catalográfica que foi solicitado a biblioteca, o título que o senhor enviou foi: Master’s thesis: retrospective voting in Brazil: a case study of São Paulo’s smart-card policy, porém no trabalho o título está diferente, houve alteração do título do seu trabalho? Quaisquer dúvidas entrar em contato com o telefone 11 3799-7732 on 2018-04-06T13:06:17Z (GMT) / Submitted by LEONARDO DA ROCHA LOURES BUENO (leobueno17@gmail.com) on 2018-04-06T19:38:12Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Defesa_vfinal_biblioteca.pdf: 941554 bytes, checksum: ff6a3af8c2471aca559bef0bdb338573 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Pamela Beltran Tonsa (pamela.tonsa@fgv.br) on 2018-04-06T20:38:08Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Defesa_vfinal_biblioteca.pdf: 941554 bytes, checksum: ff6a3af8c2471aca559bef0bdb338573 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzane Guimarães (suzane.guimaraes@fgv.br) on 2018-04-09T12:24:50Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Defesa_vfinal_biblioteca.pdf: 941554 bytes, checksum: ff6a3af8c2471aca559bef0bdb338573 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-09T12:24:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Defesa_vfinal_biblioteca.pdf: 941554 bytes, checksum: ff6a3af8c2471aca559bef0bdb338573 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-28 / Retrospective voting is a major concern of scholars worried about democratic accountability. The work attempts to measure the retrospective voting of an important urban policy in Brazil’s largest metropolis, São Paulo - SP. The Bilhete Único policy was the first smart-card for public transportation in Brazil. Commuters with the smart-card were able to save up to three bus fares in a journey, a substantial amount of money for most of São Paulo’s citizens. Using a mixed method approach, I try to test the hypothesis that the policy improvement on welfare positively impacted the electorate performance of the incumbent mayor. My findings suggest that not all bus users rewarded the incumbent mayor for delivering the policy. In particular, students and students’ families seem to be the ones who actually felt the policy effects and cast a retrospective vote. This could be due to delivery network difficulties and to the timing of the policy. Additionally, I employ a normative discussion to establish benchmarks of better public goods. Retrospective voting does not necessarily reward the best policies, therefore the need to discuss benchmarks. / O voto retrospectivo é um grande tema de acadêmicos preocupados com a responsabilidade democrática. O trabalho tenta medir a votação retrospectiva de uma importante política urbana na maior metrópole do Brasil, São Paulo - SP. A política do Bilhete Único foi o primeiro cartão inteligente para transporte público no Brasil. Os passageiros com o cartão inteligente conseguiram economizar até três passagens de ônibus em uma viagem, uma quantia substancial de dinheiro para a maioria dos cidadãos de São Paulo. Usando uma abordagem de método misto, tento testar a hipótese de que a melhoria da política sobre o bem-estar impactou positivamente o desempenho do eleitorado da prefeita em exercício. Minhas descobertas sugerem que nem todos os usuários de ônibus recompensaram a prefeita por ter entregue a política. Em particular, alunos e as famílias dos alunos parecem ter sido os que realmente sentiram os efeitos da política e votaram retrospectivamente. Isso pode ser devido às dificuldades na rede de entrega e ao momento da política. Além disso, emprego uma discussão normativa para estabelecer benchmarks de melhores bens públicos. A votação retrospectiva não necessariamente recompensa as melhores políticas, por isso, a necessidade de discutir benchmarks.

The article tries to explain the performance of peruvian incumbent parties in the immediate electoral process after their term. To do this, the limitations of two possible explanations are explored: retrospective voting and party institutionalization. Against this, the article proposes that, to explain the peruvian government parties poor performance, it is necessary to stressed the importance of the party leader and the presidential candidate. These are key factors that can affect the electoral chances of the Peruvian ruling party in a high caudillism. / El presente artículo busca explicar el pobre desempeño de los partidos de gobiernos peruanos en los procesos electorales inmediatamente posteriores a su mandato. Para ello, se exploran las limitaciones de dos posibles explicaciones: el voto retrospectivo y la institucionalización partidaria. Frente a esto, el artículo propone que, para explicar los malos resultados obtenidos es preciso revisar el rol del líder partidario y la importancia del candidato presidencial. Ambos resultan factores fundamentales que pueden afectar las oportunidades electorales del partido de gobierno en un contexto de alto caudillismo como el peruano.

Essay 1: (with Henrik Jordahl and Panu Poutvaara) We present and test a theory of prospective and retrospective pocketbook voting. Focusing on two large reforms in Sweden, we establish a causal chain from policies to sizeable individual gains and losses and then to voting. The Social Democrats proposed budget cuts affecting parents with young children before the 1994 election, but made generous promises to the same group before the 1998 election. Since parents with older children were largely unaffected we use a difference-in-differences strategy for identification. We find clear evidence of prospective pocketbook voting. Voters respond to campaign promises but not to the later implementation of the reforms. / Essay 2: This essay presents a detailed analysis of voters' response to municipality and regional level unemployment and economic growth, in Swedish general elections from 1985 to 2002, using data on 284 municipalities and 9 regions. The preferred specification suggests that an increase in regional growth or a reduction in regional unemployment by one percentage point is associated with an increase in the support for the national government by about 0.6 and 1.0 percentage points. Changes in unemployment and growth at the municipality level seem to have muchsmaller effects on government support. / Essay 3: One prediction from cognitive dissonance theory is that the act of voting makes people more positive toward the party or candidate they have voted for. Following Mullainathan and Washington (2008), I test this prediction by using exogenous variation in turnout provided by the voting age restriction. I improve on previous studies by investigating political attitudes, measured just before elections, when they are highly predictive of voting. In contrast to earlier studies I find no effect of voting on political attitudes. This result holds for a variety of political attitudes and data from both Sweden and the United States. / Essay4: (with Niclas Berggren and Henrik Jordahl) We conduct an extensive robustness analysis of the relationship between trust and growth by investigating a later time period and a bigger sample than in previous studies. In addition to robustness tests that focus on model uncertainty, we systematize the investigation of outlier influence on the results by using the robust estimation technique Least Trimmed Squares. We find that when outliers (especially China) are removed, the trust-growth relationship is no longer robust. On average, the trust coefficient is half as large as in previous findings.