Party, Ideology, and Deficits: Provincial Fiscal Policy and the Cameron Thesis, 1966–2009

Abstract

AbstractIn a 1985 publication David Cameron reported that historically leftist governments had governed with smaller deficits than rightist governments. The party ideology variable was incorporated into a large body of subsequent research, mainly by economists, to study the growth of public spending and indebtedness. Most agreed with Cameron; some did not. Virtually all studies focused on western European nations (but not subnational governments). This study analyzes provincial deficits or surpluses over the period 1966 to 2009 and determines that rightist parties, despite controls for economic and other political variables, have lower budgetary deficits, a finding which contradicts Cameron but is consistent with five previous studies of provincial spending in Canada.