INFLUENCE OF FISCAL STRESS AND LEGISLATURE SIZE ON EXPENDITURE CHANGE

The study aims to examine and analyze the effect of fiscal stress and legislative size on expenditure change in the district or city of West Java Province. The research method used is descriptive method and verification method. Data collection techniques are carried out through secondary data obtained from Supreme Audit Istitution (BPK). The population of this study is all regencies and cities in West Java Province in the 2016-2018 fiscal year. The number of regencies and cities in West Java Province in the 2016-2018 fiscal year was 27. This research sample selection method uses Non Probability Sampling using saturated sampling with a total of 81 districts and cities. The results showed that fiscal stress negatively affected expenditure change, while the influence of the legislature size had a positive effect on expenditure change.

The Effect of Legislature Size on Public Spending: A Meta-Analysis

In a seminal article, Weingast et al. (1981) argue that there is a positive relationship between legislature size and inefficiency in public expenditures. Their proposition is currently known as the "law of 1/n" and has been widely debated in political science and public administration. However, recent studies have questioned the validity of the theory. In this letter, we estimate the first meta-analysis of the relationship between the number of legislators and public spending. Based on a sample of 29 articles, we find no robust evidence for the effect of legislature size on government budgets. Yet the aggregate results show significant heterogeneity. While earlier studies provide moderate support for the "law of 1/n", papers using causal inference methods consistently find a negative relationship between seats and spending. The available evidence also indicates that proportional representation and mixed voting systems are no more likely to overspend than majoritarian ones.

Legislature Size and Welfare: Evidence from Brazil

What is the effect of legislature size on public service provision? While the literature relates legislature size to representation and government expenditure, its implications for welfare remain understudied. In this paper, we investigate the effects of legislature size on welfare, exploiting exogenous changes in city-council size in Brazil between 2005 and 2008. We show that adding a legislator improves education and health care. However, the results prove true for the services that are believed to be highly salient to voters, are easiest to claim credit for, and are easy to provide. In this sense, education quality and preventive health care remain unaffected while infant mortality and primary school enrollment significantly improve. To investigate the mechanism, we surveyed former councilors and analyzed 346,553 bills proposed by municipalities in the period. This analysis largely corroborates our findings, showing that politicians prefer to provide private and local public goods. This paper has implications for the design of legislative institutions.