Political Elites in Economic Policy-Making

Abstract

In the literature on economic and social policy-making, most scholarly work has focused on the impact of ‘aggregate’ government partisanship, rather than on the influence of individual ministers (see e.g. Imbaeu et al. 2001). However, the question of individual cabinet members’ impact on policy-making has recently gained interest, where some empirical work show support for the idea that individual ministers matter, whereas others do not (see e.g. Becher 2010; Alexiadou 2015; Goodhart 2013; Herzog 2016; Martin and Vanberg 2014; 2016). A focus on individual cabinet members is also in line with assumptions made in the literature about coalition governance (see e.g. Laver and Shepsle 1996). According to this ‘ministerial government’ or ‘fiefdom government’ model (Hallerberg 2004), each ministerial portfolio is allocated to one of the coalition parties, and there is ‘no mechanism by which any other party can prevent the portfolio holder from implementing its ideal point within that jurisdiction’ (Strøm et al. 2010: 523). Hence, it is important to analyze the role of individual actors in economic policy-making. This panel focuses specifically on how important actors in economic policy-making, such as Finance Ministers, are selected. Here, important work has already been made by several of the panel participants. For example, Hallerberg and Wehner (2013) have shown that certain backgrounds are more likely among ministers appointed during times of economic crisis, which they argue is due to that governments in an economic crisis need to gain the confidence of both investors and of voters. Also focusing on ‘technocrats’, Alexiadou and Gunaydin (2015) look at the conditions under which PMs or party leaders select technocrat ministers, and show that critical economic events and party ideology predict technocratic appointments. The panel includes four papers. The first paper, by Lindvall and Bäck, focuses on the background and selection of Finance Ministers since the late 1700s up until today. The second paper, by Alexiadou focuses on the “revolving-door hypothesis”, the movement of policy-makers between private and public sectors, and its effects on policy outcomes. In the third paper of the panel, Hallerberg and Wehner analyze when economists become top-level “economic policy-makers,” focusing on financial crises and the partisanship of a country’s leader. In the fourth paper, Belling focuses on how finance ministers select non-partisan experts to bodies that monitor budgetary policies.