TY  - JOUR
AU  - Alesina,Alberto
AU  - Ardagna,Silvia
AU  - Trebbi,Francesco
TI  - Who Adjusts and When? On the Political Economy of Reforms
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 12049
PY  - 2006
Y2  - February 2006
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12049
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w12049.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Alberto F. Alesina
Department of Economics
Harvard University
Littauer Center 210
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/495-8388
Fax: 617/495-7730
E-Mail: aalesina@harvard.edu

Silvia Ardagna
Global Economics
Global Investment Research
130 Peterborough Court
133 Fleet Street
London EC4A 2BB
United Kingdom
Tel: 44 (0) 20 7051 0584
E-Mail: ardagna@gmail.com

Francesco Trebbi
University of British Columbia
1873 East Mall
Vancouver, BC, V6T1Z1
Canada
Tel: 604.218.5900
Fax: 604.822.5915
E-Mail: ftrebbi@mail.ubc.ca
AB  - Why do countries delay stabilizations of large and increasing budget deficits and inflation? And what explains the timing of reforms? We use the war of attrition model as a guidance for our empirical study on a vast sample of countries. We find that stabilizations are more likely to occur when time of crisis occur, at the beginning of term of office of a new government, in countries with "strong" governments (i.e. presidential systems and unified governments with a large majority of the party in office), and when the executive faces less constraints. The role of external inducements like IMF programs has at best a weak effect, but problem of reverse causality are possible.
ER  -