Political Fragmentation and Fiscal Outcomes

In this paper we develop the analysis ofthe effects on political fragmentation onfiscal policy in a number of ways. Weanalyze three kinds of fragmentation: sizeand control, institutional and over timefragmentation. In doing so we introduce anumber of new variables that allow us tolook at this issue in a broader way. At thesame time we have tackled somemethodological problems that affectedprevious analyses, using a panel of 19 OECDcountries over 1975–1995. Overall we findrelatively poor evidence in favor of sizeand over time fragmentation, and moreevidence of institutional and controlfragmentation.