Political budget cycles theory and, analyzing and assessing the Turkish election year fiscal policies in post-1980 era

The literature on oportunistic political business cycles suggests that due to the myopic natures of individual voters and retrospective voting attitudes, governments can manipulate the economy via monetary surprises to create such conditions to increase their popularity to win elections.The models based on monetary surprises as the driving force were unconvincing explanations of oportunistic cycles. As a result research has concentrated on fiscal policy as the driving force. So called political budget cycles theory suggests that, incumbent governments use fiscal policy instruments, either by creating budget deficits or changing the composition of public expenditures to increase their popularity.This study attempts to investigate the presence of politically manufactured fiscal cycles in Turkey. The results implicate that incumbent governments in Turkey have used fiscal policy instruments in creating political budget cycles during election periods in their attemts to buy votes for winning elections or to enhance their chance of re-election.Key Words:1. Political Economy2. Political Business Cycles3. Political Budget Cycles4. Turkish Economy5. Electoral Cycles in Turkey