# Conditional political legislation cycles

Fabio Padovano, Youssoufa Sy

► To cite this version:

Fabio Padovano, Youssoufa Sy. Conditional political legislation cycles. International Review of Law and Economics, 2025, 85, pp.106305. 10.1016/j.irle.2025.106305. hal-05423986

HAL Id: hal-05423986

https://hal.science/hal-05423986v1

Submitted on 13 Jan 2026

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access
archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci-
entific research documents, whether they are pub-
lished or not. The documents may come from
teaching and research institutions in France or
abroad, or from public or private research centers.

L'archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est
destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents
scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non,
émanant des établissements d'enseignement et de
recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires
publics ou privés.

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Distributed under a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 - Attribution - International License
# Conditional political legislation cycles

Fabio Padovano<sup>a,b,*</sup> <sup>1</sup>, Youssoufa Sy<sup>c,d,1</sup>

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /></figure>

Check for
updates

## ARTICLE INFO

**JEL Classifications:**

C49
D72
H19
H61
H62

**Keywords:**

Political legislation cycles
Economic theory of legislation
Comparative institutional analysis
Negative binomial regression

## ABSTRACT

The Political Legislation Cycles theory predicts peaks of legislative production before elections, as incumbents adopt vote-maximizing strategies to secure reelection. Like for budget cycles, legislative cycles can be interpreted as quantitative evidence of a dynamic inefficiency in the agency relationship between voters and politicians. This paper presents the first panel test of PLC theory, to identify which institutional features generate this inefficiency, exploiting a newly assembled dataset of the legislative activity of twenty electoral democracies, mainly from 1975 to 2010s. The estimates show that the total number of laws decreases at the beginning of a legislature and significantly increases near its end, generally 6 months before, with magnitudes of the cycles varying across countries. These cross-countries variations appear correlated with electoral systems (PR electoral systems generating cycles 67% greater than majoritarian), government systems, with presidential democracies being characterized by larger cycles especially when governments are divided, and with the degree of fiscal decentralization, with highly decentralized countries showing a legislative cycles 64% greater. Finally, the level of democracy affects PLC in a nonlinear way. These results provide a quantitative guidance to constitutional reforms aimed at increasing efficiency in the representation of voters' preferences in democracies

## 1. Introduction and literature review

The Political Legislation Cycles (hence after, PLC) literature studies a widely observed phenomenon in electoral democracies, namely that the process of approval of laws follows a rather steady pace for most of the duration of a legislature, then it accelerates towards the end, when elections draw near, quite often reaches a peak right before the elections and then tapers off in the very final stages of the legislature.<fnref n="2" /> Why is that so? How general is this phenomenon? To what extent are the institutions that regulate the lawmaking process responsible for this pattern, and which ones are better able to discipline it? The PLC theory provides an

answer to the first question; the comparative empirical analysis carried out in this paper aims at shedding light on the other ones.

The PLC theory explains legislative cycles in two alternative ways, depending on whether the aim of incumbent legislators is disclosing or hiding information to voters. A first class of models (Padovano and Petrarca, 2012) interprets the legislative cycles as the result of the need of incumbent legislators to signal their competence to imperfectly informed voters when they are about to make their electoral choices; without that boost in legislative production, voters would be unable to distinguish competent legislators from incompetent ones.<fnref n="3" /> A second strand (Gratton et al. 2018, 2021) instead argues that legislative cycles

<footnote><sup>a</sup> CREM-CNRS et Centre Condorcet, Université de Rennes, Rennes, France</footnote>

<footnote><sup>b</sup> DSP, University of Roma Tre, Roma, Italy</footnote>

<footnote><sup>c</sup> European Doctorate in Law and Economics (EDLE), Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands</footnote>

<footnote><sup>d</sup> CREM-CNRS Université de Rennes 1, Rennes, France</footnote>

<footnote>* Corresponding author at: CREM-CNRS et Centre Condorcet, Université de Rennes, Rennes, France.</footnote>

<footnote>E-mail address: fabio.padovano@univ-rennes1.fr (F. Padovano).</footnote>

<footnote n="1">¹ Paper presented at the conference "The future of law and economics 2022", Maastricht, Netherlands, and 2023 (Rennes, France), the 2023 EPCS conference in Hannover, Germany, the lunch seminars of the CREM, Rennes the 3rd year PhD Workshop of The European Doctorate in Law and Economics EDLE 2022, Bologna, Italy and at the Seminars of the University of Urbino and of Roma Tre, Italy. The authors would like to thank also Michael Faure, Stefan Voigt, Benoit Le Maux, Elena Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, Francesco Lagona, Emma Galli for useful comments on previous versions of this paper. The usual *caveat* applies.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² See Padovano (2025) for a comprehensive review of the literature and of the empirical evidence.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³ The logic of the Padovano and Petrarca (2012) model evokes that of Maskin and Tirole (2004), when they consider the case of policymakers "pandering" the preferences of the electorate. In Maskin and Tirole (2004), however, the electorally induced inefficiency in the agency relationship between voters and representatives lies in the content of policymakers' decisions, who could in principle implement better policies than those that the need to be reelected induces them to carry out. In Padovano and Petrarca (2012), instead, the distortion lies in the timing with which legislation is passed, regardless of the congruence of such legislation with voters' preferences.</footnote>
are caused by the intention of incompetent legislators to *confound* voters' ability to evaluate the quality and welfare maximizing potential of approved laws. Insofar as the true effects of a law can be ascertained with some delay, concentrating their approval close to the elections is a way to make voters mistake legislators' activism for competence. Either way, the presence of political legislation cycles reveals an inefficiency in the agency relationship between voters and their representatives; moreover, the magnitude of the cycles can be interpreted as a quantitative measure of such inefficiency.

In this respect, the PLC literature is similar to the Political Budget Cycle one (hence after, PBC: Veiga et al., 2019; Rogoff, 1990), which also interprets policymakers' manipulation of the budget before the elections as evidence of an inefficiency in the voters-representatives agency relationship. The two literatures however differ along two important dimensions. First, PLC provides a more general indicator of this inefficiency than PBC. PBC models focus only on budgetary decisions, whereas the PLC ones encompass all types of redistributive decisions implemented via legislation, including regulations, transfers of property rights and more (Becker, 1983, Peltzman, 1976; McCormick and Tollison, 1981). Second, PLC theories characterize the political process that leads to the approval of laws according to the common agency model (Bernheim and Whinston, 1986; Grossmann and Helpman, 2002), instead of the standard principal-agent structure typical of the PBC literature (Rogoff, 1990). The richer structure of the common agency, which considers the interactions between three sets of agents as opposed to the two featured in the principal-agent model, allows to explain also other features of the legislative process. In Padovano and Petrarca (2012), where the three agents examined are legislators, lobbies and unorganized voters, the model generates predictions about the legislator's choice between alternative legislative instruments at different stages of the legislature, as a way to arbitrage between the conflicting interests of lobbies and unorganized voters (Padovano and Petrarca, 2012; Dattilo and Padovano, 2025). In Gratton et al. (2021), where the three agents are voters, bureaucrats and legislators, the model draws inferences about the quality of legislation and the efficiency of the bureaucracy.

Overall, the empirical literature on PLC provides considerable amount of supportive evidence for the predictions of the theory. The first strand of empirical tests focused on single-country, time series samples, where the institutional framework that characterizes legislative production remained stable. More recently, some studies have also examined single countries where legislative institutions have been reformed during the time series under investigation.<fnref n="4" /> Interestingly, these studies found that such reforms did have an impact on the magnitude of the legislative cycles, inasmuch as they affect the agency relationship between legislators and voters. The next step forward is the study of *conditional* PLC, namely, the analysis of which types of political institutions generate more manipulations of legislative activity before elections – or, conversely, which ones constrain political legislation cycles more,<fnref n="5" /> in a panel of countries. This is precisely the goal of the present paper.

For this purpose, we have assembled a new dataset about the monthly legislative activity of twenty electoral democracies, in the time interval spanning mostly from 1975 to 2010 (Sy, 2023). This dataset allows us to perform the first cross-country, comparative analysis of the

legislative cycles in different institutional settings. To anticipate the main results of the analysis, we find that the magnitude of the PLC is larger: a) in countries where legislators are elected via proportional representation, compared to those with majority rule; b) in presidential democracies, especially in situations of divided government, compared to parliamentary democracies; c) in more decentralized countries. Moreover, the magnitude of the legislative cycles appears related to the level of democracy in a nonlinear way, as it appears similar in anocracies and in full democracies (according to the classification of the Polity V; Marshall and Gurr, 2020), but lower in less competitive democracies.

The size of the coefficients estimated on the proxies for these institutional features can be interpreted as quantitative estimates of how much each of them contribute, *ceteris paribus*, to the inefficiency in the agency relationship between voters and legislators that the PLC exposes. Hence, when used at the policy level, specifically in the domain of constitutional reforms, these findings provide relevant *quantitative* information especially for reforms aiming to improve electoral accountability and strengthening democratic institutions.

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section two explains in greater detail the PLC theory, as well as the political economy studies that examine the transmission mechanisms relating the institutional features to the dynamics of legislative production. Section three presents the dataset, while the empirical strategy and the econometric model are discussed in the fourth section. In Section 5 we illustrate the main results of the estimates, while in Section 6 we consider (and reject) some alternative explanations of legislative cycles. Finally, Section 7 concludes, highlighting avenues for future research.

## 2. Literature review

### 2.1. *The logic of the political legislation theory*

As already pointed out in the introduction, there are basically two strands of PLC models, both predicting a peak of legislative production at the end of the legislature, albeit through two different transmission mechanisms. A first class of models explains the legislative cycles through the interplay between bureaucrats, legislators and voters (Gratton et al. 2018, 2021). In this setting, legislators can be either competent or not, which is their private information. Both types seek re-election by passing “reforms”, but only competent legislators are able to formulate useful legislation, able to improve voters’ welfare. The usefulness of the reforms, and hence the competence of the legislator is revealed to voters through the intermediation of the bureaucracy implementing the approved legislation. If bureaucrats are efficient, they swiftly apply the reforms approved by the politicians, thus allowing voters enough time to verify whether these reforms are useful or not; if, instead, bureaucrats’ activity is overwhelmed by a large stockpile of (possibly useless) reforms to implement, their activity will become slower; this in turn will reduce the time that voters will have to evaluate the approved legislation and, by that, the legislators’ type. This creates the incentive for incompetent legislators to approve many laws at the end of the legislature, right before the elections, to prevent voters from being able to assess their true value. The incompetent legislator thus obtains two results; first, he will appear active to voters, who will mistake his activism for competence; second, he will overwhelm the bureaucracy with reforms to implement, reducing the bureaucracy’s efficiency and, consequently, also the possibility for competent legislators to reveal their true type. Gratton et al. (2021) verify the prediction of their model with data about the timing and quality of the laws passed by the Italian Parliament, as well as proxies about the perceived efficiency of the state bureaucracy.

While interesting, this approach places a considerable amount of theoretical structure on the data about legislative production. An empirical test of this theory requires information such as indexes of quality, measures of verbosity and transparency of approved laws, as well as indicators of bureaucratic efficiency. All these requirements

<footnote n="4">⁴ Among these papers, Lagona and Padovano (2021) have examined the democratization process of the Republic of South Korea, Padovano and Gavoille (2017) have studied the semipresidential system of France, Padovano and Veselova (2024) the institutional reforms of Ukraine after the independence from the Soviet Union.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵ A similar research endeavor has been carried out in the context of the PBC literature (Shi and Svensson, 2006; Aidt et al., 2011 among others) giving rise to the so-called “conditional PBC literature” (De Haan and Klomp, 2013). Lack of data, however, has so far prevented such an inquiry in the context of legislative production.</footnote>
make the cross-country analysis of the effects of different institutional frameworks on legislative activity quite difficult. More suitable for comparative institutional analysis is instead the second strand of PLC theory (Padovano and Petrarca, 2012), as it features a more flexible institutional framework and does not need an evaluation of the quality of legislation and of the efficiency of the bureaucracy. This type of model departs from the standard setup of the PBC literature (Rogoff, 1990; Rogoff and Siebert, 1988; Shi and Svensson, 2006), based on a principal-agent relationship, as it foresees a political market where three sets of collective agents interact: 1) the government in office, called the “legislator”; 2) special interest groups; and 3) unorganized voters. Voters and interest groups represent the demand side of the political market, while the legislator the supply side.<fnref n="6" /> The logic and the assumptions of the model are straightforward. On the one hand, voters who act individually aim at obtaining “general public goods” through legislation approved by the legislator. On the other hand, individuals who get organized in an interest group must bear coordination costs to obtain “specific private goods” for the benefit of the group members, again by means of legislative measures approved by the legislator. In the context of the model, the difference between “general public goods” and “specific private goods” is that the former are less redistributive than the latter and are, therefore, less politically costly to obtain. Voters and special interest groups have then conflicting interests, and it is up to the legislators to arbitrage among them. Voters’ information is also supposed to be incomplete, as in Gratton et al. (2018, 2021), while that of interest groups, thanks to their organization, is complete. Finally, only voters can guarantee re-election to the legislator with their votes; interest groups can instead exchange legislation with the legislator in return of information and economic resources. The legislator’s goal is maximizing the probability of being re-elected, thanks to his legislative production in favor of voters and the special interest group. This production takes the form of either of two distinct legislative instruments called, in the jargon of the theory, “laws” and “decrees”, which differ in terms of the information costs they engender. To approve a law, an explicit vote of the parliament is needed, which makes them a highly visible instrument; decrees, instead, are typically executive acts adopted by branches of the government that do not necessarily require the approval of the parliament; as such, they are less easily known. Furthermore, laws are usually collected and published in official records, whereas the enactment of a decree (at least of some of types of them) does not require similar publication procedures.<fnref n="7" /> Hence the theory assumes that decrees are visible only to the interest group, which has complete information, while laws are known to all the agents of the model.<fnref n="8" /> To the extent that every piece of legislation redistributes property rights, the legislator can choose between these two different legislative instruments to supply specific private goods to interest groups or general public goods to voters.

The model shows that, provided that the legislature ends at the expected time (i.e., there are no early dissolutions of the parliament), the vote maximizing strategy for the legislator is a two-phase one: in the first

part of the legislature, it redistributes specific private assets in favor of interest groups by means of decrees, to obtain economic resources from them; then, in the last months before the elections, the legislator redistributes general public goods to the voters to get their votes, by passing laws. If the legislature dissolves prematurely, the peak of legislative production should not occur, since the time horizon under which legislators maximize their dynamic objective function is no longer valid. This scenario aside, the model predicts a lower-than-average number of laws approved in the first years of the legislature and a peak of legislative production in the last months before the elections; for decrees, instead, the model predicts a larger use of them in the first period of the legislature and a slowdown in the last months.

## 2.2. Empirical tests of the theory

As already mentioned in the introduction, the empirical literature on PLC can be divided in two strands, depending whether the institutional framework where the legislative process is conducted can be considered stable or evolving. In both cases, so far the tests have been performed only on time series samples of a single country. The studies of the first strand have focused on a wide variety of institutional contexts, such as parliamentary systems like Italy (Gratton et al., 2021; Lagona and Padovano, 2008; Lagona et al., 2015; Dattilo and Padovano, 2025), presidential systems such as the Czech Republic (Brechler and Geršl, 2014), supranational institutions like the European Parliament (Kovats, 2013), staggered legislations such as those of Germany and Japan, (Willumsen et al., 2018). All of them have found considerable evidence of PLC, confirming the generality of the theory. Even more interesting for the present analysis are the empirical studies of the second strand, which examine countries where the institutional context has evolved throughout the time series. Among them, Padovano and Gavoille (2017), and Lagona and Padovano (2021) are especially relevant. Padovano and Gavoille (2017) apply the PLC theory to the French semi-presidential system, where parliamentary and presidential elections generate similar re-election incentives for incumbents. While both type of elections appear to generate a PLC, the magnitude of the two cycles is not the same, suggesting that the transition of power in the two different institutions (executive and legislative) has different impacts on legislative production. In their analysis of the South Korean case, Lagona an Padovano (2021) verify that the magnitude of legislative cycles grew as the country’s government became more democratic. They also disaggregated the overall legislative production between laws of parliamentary and of government proposal and found that the increase of magnitude of the PLC was far greater in the case of parliamentary bills, i. e., in the legislative initiatives of the government branch that was at the center stage of the democratization process, where the incentives to adopt the vote-maximizing strategies that generate the cycle grew the most.<fnref n="9" />

The common denominator of all these studies is the evidence that different institutional systems engender different incentives and constraints on the PLC. Therefore, the logical step forward of the analysis is a proper comparative analysis of the legislative cycles in a panel of countries characterized by different institutions affecting the legislative process.

## 2.3. Contributions from comparative institutional analyses

The political economy literature identifies two non-exclusive transmission mechanisms relying the country’s institutional setup with the

<footnote n="6">⁶ This setup is similar to the common agency model of Bernheim and Whinston (1986) and Grossmann and Helpman (2002).</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷ First evidence of the greater visibility of “laws” compared to “decrees” is the fact that data about decrees are much harder to find and that datasets about decrees are available just for a few countries, often in a noncomparable way (Dattilo and Padovano, 2025).</footnote>

<footnote n="8">⁸ In legal systems, the category “laws” encompasses those legislative instruments that require a parliamentary vote and are primarily an act of the legislative branch; “decrees” instead are primarily an act of the executive that may not require a prior approval by the parliament. Dattilo and Padovano (2024) verify this assumption in the context of the Italian legal system. Furthermore, laws are usually collected and published in official records, whereas the enactment of a decree (at least some of types of them) does not require similar publication procedures; it is no accident that data about decrees are much harder to collect with respect to laws.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">⁹ A preliminary study of the legislative production of Ukraine (Padovano and Veselova, 2024) after the independence from the Soviet Union reveals that the varies institutional changes that the country went through have affected the cycle of both laws (approved. By the parliament) and of presidential decrees (mainly an executive act).</footnote>
predictions of the PLC theory in terms of magnitude of the cycle. The first channel depends on the ability of the institutional framework to make legislators accountable to voters, thus producing smaller legislative cycles (Persson et al., 1997; Franzese, 2010). The second hinges on the way institutions affect legislators' incentives to supply either more general public goods or more targeted ones to constituencies of different sizes (Persson and Tabellini, 2003). The consideration of these two channels allows to identify several institutional features (for which comparable data are available) that may affect the legislative, namely: a) the structure of government (presidential vs. parliamentary); b) the electoral systems (majoritarian vs. proportional); c) the level of decentralization of policy decisions; and d) the country's overall degree of democracy.

**I) Presidential vs. parliamentary systems.** Two strands of literature may relate government systems to PLC. The first is the political economy literature on the separation of powers. As Persson and Tabellini (2003) put it, presidential systems have a two-chain delegation of power, since both the executive and legislative branch are formed independently through a popular vote. Parliamentary systems instead feature a hierarchical delegation of power, from voters to the legislative branch and then to the executive, whose permanence in power is subject to a confidence vote of the legislative. The presidential system should then be characterized by a clearer separation of powers and lower legislative collusion between the two government branches. Taken together, these two characteristics should make the parliamentary system less accountable to voters than the presidential one (Persson et al., 1997, 2000). Because the legislative cycle is evidence of lower electoral accountability, one could argue that, *ceteris paribus*, legislative cycles be greater in parliamentary regimes than in presidential ones.

The second strand of literature qualifies the impact on legislative output that presidential systems may have in situation of "divided governments", which occur when the government and the parliamentary majority are expression of two different parties and/or ideologies<fnref n="10" /> (Alesina and Rosenthal, 1996; Tsebelis, 2002). In this case legislative output should be lower, since the two government branches are less likely to cooperate in the legislative process (Tsebelis, 2002). The empirical literature however finds limited support for this claim (Edwards et al., 1997; Rogers, 2005; Baumgartner et al., 2014). In particular, divided governments are found to reduce the probability of passing important legislation and major reforms, whose approval require longer time (Edwards et al., 1997; Baumgartner et al., 2014); yet all studies concur that divided government have no impact on total legislative output. A possible rationalization of these findings is that divided governments reduce legislative activity during the legislature, but when elections draw near, legislators manage to pass laws that are of lower importance, but still crucial for their re-election. The combination of these two effects is consistent with PLC. The panel structure of our dataset allows us to test whether divided governments yield legislative cycles.

**II) Proportional vs. majoritarian electoral systems.** Electoral systems usually fall into two main categories: proportional and majoritarian/plurality systems. In terms of electoral accountability, majority systems outperform PR systems, as voters directly elect individual candidates rather than voting for a party list. Under PR then the candidates' allegiance is to party leaders who decide the composition of the lists, more than to voters. Moreover, Persson and Tabellini (2003) examined the incentives for public spending that these two alternative electoral systems engender. They test the hypothesis that PR systems are associated with the provision of general public goods, because candidates seek the support of a broad coalition of voters; the plurality rule, instead, creates more incentives to provide targeted goods to smaller groups of voters.

Indeed, they find that each measure of public good spending that they consider (central government spending, welfare state expenditures and budget deficit) is higher in PR than in majoritarian systems.<fnref n="11" /> Both transmission mechanisms relying electoral systems to PLC imply that, *ceteris paribus*, the magnitude of the legislative cycle should be larger in countries using the PR electoral system rather than the majority rule.

**III) Decentralization.** A long-standing tradition in public choice (Brennan and Buchanan, 1980) holds that fiscal decentralization of both taxes and expenditures increases accountability and reduces public spending because: a) it endows citizens-taxpayers also with the exit option, not just the voice one, through elections; and b) it allows them to break the Leviathan into a plurality of jurisdictions competing for tax bases. Thus, both overall spending and political rents should be reduced. Yet, very few countries, if any, are characterized by a parallel decentralization of the powers to tax and spend, since the former usually remains mainly a prerogative of central governments. This asymmetry creates three main distortions that might hinder the efficiency-enhancing effects of decentralization. First, local policymakers may fail to fully internalize the cost of local spending when they can finance their marginal expenditure via central transfers or shared revenue funded by taxpayers in other jurisdictions (Rodden and Eskeland, 2003). This "common pool" problem often results in overspending and in a deficit bias. Second, local politicians may expect the central government to bail them out whenever necessary, thus undermining their incentives to behave in a fiscally responsible manner. This "soft budget constraint" also increases overall spending (Arulampalam et al., 2009; Padovano, 2014). Thirdly, multiplying the government levels that voters must monitor and be informed about reduces the efficiency of their agency relationships with their multiple representatives. This "multiple agent" problem becomes particularly serious when the various government tiers entertain shared responsibilities that make it more difficult for voters to identify which policymaker is responsible for the policies they must evaluate in their electoral choices (Franzese, 2010). In this case too lower accountability and greater spending should increase the magnitude of PLC. These three problems suggest that, *ceteris paribus*, the magnitude of the legislative cycle should be higher in countries with a higher level of decentralization.

**IV) Level of democracy.** Usually, higher levels of democracy (evaluated according to standard metrics, like Polity V) should be positively correlated with greater electoral accountability; if so, we should expect PLC of lower magnitude in more democratic countries. Yet, the literature on political competition (Besley et al. 2010; Padovano and Ricciuti, 2009) and the PBC literature itself have shown that, when political competition becomes more intense, the incentives for incumbent governments to dynamically distort policy choices to signal competence increase. In such a case, the relationship between levels of democracy and PLC may be non-linear, i.e., more manipulations of policy choices and legislation may be expected both at low and high levels of democracy, compared to intermediate ones. Sorting which of these two predictions is supported by the data is left to the empirical analysis; hence we cannot rely on any a priori about the relationship between the level of democracy and the PLC.

## 3. Dataset and endogenous variable

### 3.1. Endogenous variable

To perform the analysis, we have assembled the *Database of Comparative Political Legislation Cycles* (DCPLC; Sy, 2023) to provide comparable information about the legislative activity of the parliaments

<footnote n="10">¹⁰ Parliamentary systems are less exposed to those situations, since the legislative can remove the confidence to the executive if they are not ideologically aligned.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">¹¹ Gagliarducci et al. (2011) and Funk and Gathman (2013) too, in their analysis of countries that switched between majority and PR systems (respectively, Italy and Switzerland), found that PR is associated with the provision of more public goods and fewer targeted benefits.</footnote>
of different countries. The original nucleus of comparable data on legislative production is the Comparative Agendas Project (CAP), which provides us mainly the standards for comparability of the legislative instruments of the different countries. The CAP dataset classifies as “laws” all legislative instruments, regardless of their origin, name and classification, which require a debate and a vote by the legislative branch in order to produce real effects. In the DCPLC dataset we adopt the similar definition, but we extend the coverage of the CAP, which focuses mostly on European countries and on the US, to some Latin American democracies, plus Israel, India and South Korea, using national data sources. Furthermore, we have also extended the time interval for several countries, such as Belgium and Spain, beyond the scope of CAP; finally, for some countries we have been able to identify the duration of the legislative process, i.e., the time lapse between the proposal and approval of a law; as we shall see, this information will prove useful to test alternative explanations of the dynamics of legislative processes. For the purposes of this study, we have aggregated all the laws in monthly counts centered on their month of approval.<fnref n="12" /> These series, the dependent variable of our analysis, is called *Laws*.

The DCPLC is therefore the largest multiple country dataset on comparable legislative production, as it features a total of 76879 legislative acts observed across 20 countries over 8783 periods (months). Specifically, the countries (units) and time intervals (monthly counts) included are: Argentina (1999–2020), Australia (1975–2010), Belgium (1988–2022), Brazil (1975–2020), Chile (1981–2020), Colombia (1975–2020), France (1975–2010), Germany (1975–2010), Hungary (1989–2020), Iceland (1988–2020), India (1975–2020), Israel (1975–2020), Ireland (1975–2010), Italy (1975–2010), Poland (1989–2020), South Korea (1988–2009), Spain (1975–2020), Sweden (1975–2010), the United Kingdom (1975–2010), and the United States (1975–2020). Most of these units (14) cover the period 1975–2010; six of them (Argentina, Belgium, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, South-Korea) cover a more recent period, resulting in an unbalanced panel. Table 1 reports the official names and sources of the “Laws” collected by country.

The average number of laws approved per month in the whole dataset is 8.8, with a variance equal to 229, almost 26 times larger. This characteristic of the dependent variable is not surprising, as many count data analyses present a problem of overdispersion; the empirical PLC literature is no exception, as a variance greater than the mean reveals that legislative cycles are indeed present. The negative binomial fixed effect model, discussed in the empirical strategy, will attempt to control for this feature of the data. Table 2 provides the summary descriptive statistics of the data about the dependent variable.<fnref n="13" />

Figures 1a-1t in the Statistical annexes portray the legislative activity of the different countries for the time extension of the data currently available. The vertical light-blue lines indicate the months of legislative or presidential elections, depending on the country's government system, whereas dashed lines illustrate presidential elections. An upward trend towards the end of the legislature can be interpreted as primary evidence of legislation cycles. At a first glance, this seems to be the case in many countries, especially Germany and the US.

## 3.2. Exogenous variables

We divide the explanatory variables in two sets: first, the standard

<table><caption>Table 1</caption><caption>a. Data sources: dependent variable. b. Data sources: independent variable.</caption><thead><tr><th>Country</th><th>Act name (as collected)</th><th>Official name</th><th>Source</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Argentina</td><td>Bills with definitive sanction</td><td>Proyectos de ley</td><td>Diputados Argentina</td></tr><tr><td>Australia</td><td>Acts as made</td><td>Acts</td><td>Federal Register of Legislation</td></tr><tr><td>Belgium</td><td>Law projects and propositions</td><td>Propositions + projets de lois</td><td>Fichier legislatif</td></tr><tr><td>Brazil</td><td>Ordinary Laws</td><td>Lei Ordinária</td><td>Camara dos deputados</td></tr><tr><td>Chile</td><td>Laws</td><td>Leyes</td><td>Congreso Nacional de Chile</td></tr><tr><td>Colombia</td><td>Approved Laws</td><td>Leyes aprobadas</td><td>Congreso de la republica de Colombia</td></tr><tr><td>France</td><td>Laws</td><td>Lois</td><td>Assemblée Nationale</td></tr><tr><td>Germany</td><td>Laws</td><td>Gesetze</td><td>DIP (Bundestag)</td></tr><tr><td>Hungary</td><td>Public Laws</td><td>Public Laws</td><td>Comparative Agendas Project</td></tr><tr><td>Iceland</td><td>Laws passed</td><td>Lög</td><td>Althingi</td></tr><tr><td>India</td><td>Bills assented</td><td>Bills assented</td><td>Lok Sabha</td></tr><tr><td>Ireland</td><td>Acts (enacted bills)</td><td>Acts</td><td>Houses of the Oireachtas</td></tr><tr><td>Israel</td><td>Laws of the state of Israel</td><td>Laws of the state of Israel</td><td>The Knesset</td></tr><tr><td>Italy</td><td>Ordinary Laws</td><td>Leggi ordinarie</td><td>Parlamento.it</td></tr><tr><td>Poland</td><td>Laws passed</td><td>Uchwalone ustawy</td><td>Sejm</td></tr><tr><td>South Korea</td><td>Laws</td><td>Laws</td><td>National Assembly of the Republic of South Korea</td></tr><tr><td>Spain</td><td>Laws</td><td>Leyes</td><td>Congreso de los diputados</td></tr><tr><td>Sweden</td><td>Act</td><td>Lag</td><td>Riksdag</td></tr><tr><td>UK</td><td>Acts of parliament</td><td>Acts of parliaments</td><td>Comparative Agendas Project</td></tr><tr><td>USA</td><td>Bills</td><td>Bills</td><td>Congress</td></tr><tr><th>Variable</th><th>Description</th><th>Source</th></tr><tr><td>StartlegiX, EndlegiX, EarlyX Extra</td><td>Based on DATELEG which describes months when parliamentary elections were held. Months during which either no parliamentary session is held or only extraordinary ones or when there is a summer or holiday recess</td><td>Database of Political institutions (1975–2020)</td></tr><tr><td>Maj.gm</td><td>Minimum of gov1seat/totalseats, gov2seat/totalseats, gov3seat/ totalseats, govothst/totalseats: the variable TOTALSEATS describes total seats in the legislature, or in the case of bicameral legislatures, the total seats in the lower house. This variable includes appointed and elected seats and is calculated two ways: 1) in most cases it is calculated by adding the values for all the seat share variables (gov1seat, gov2seat, gov3seat, opp1seat, opp2seat, opp3seat, govothst, oppothst, numul); 2) it is entered by hand in cases where the seat share of some parties is not specified in the sources. TOTALSEATS is NA (–999) when there is no legislature or when the legislature had been dissolved. Herfgov/Herfopp are the Herfindahl Indexes of the parliamentary seats of the government majority and those belonging to the opposition. They represent the sum of the squared seat shares of all parties in the government and opposition. The ratio of these indexes allows us to measure the fractionalization of the government coalition relative to that of the opposition</td><td>Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU-Parline)</td></tr><tr><td>Hom.gm</td><td></td><td>Database of Political institutions (1975–2020)</td></tr></tbody></table>

(continued on next page)

<footnote n="12">¹² Given that very little information on secondary legislative instruments (usually called “Ordinances” and “Decrees” or “executive orders”, depending on the country) were available, we do not consider them in the present study. We similarly exclude all legislative instruments that are directly approved by the executive branch (or by any other government branch that is not the legislative). All those instruments can be more appropriately considered as “decrees” in the jargon of the PLC theory.</footnote>

<footnote n="13">¹³ The descriptive statistics of all the other variables are available upon request.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 1 (continued)**</caption><thead><tr><th>Variable</th><th>Description</th><th>Source</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Govsystem</td><td>Based on SYSTEM: It takes the value of 1 to control for presidential and semi-presidential systems, and 0 for parliamentary ones.</td><td>Database of Political institutions (1975–2020)</td></tr><tr><td>Electrule</td><td>Based on HOUSESYS: describes which electoral rule (proportional representation or plurality) governs the election. This is coded 1 if most seats are attributed according to a plurality rule, zero if most seats are proportional.</td><td>Database of Political institutions (1975–2020)</td></tr><tr><td>D1 and D2</td><td>Based on Rd_sng and Taxd_sng: Subnational governments' total share of “own” and Tax revenues as a proportion of the general government's total /tax revenues</td><td>IMF's Fiscal Decentralization Database (2020)</td></tr><tr><td>Democracy</td><td>Based on Polity2 scores: the PolityV project captures a country regime spectrum on a 21 points scale, ranging from -10 (hereditary monarchy) to +10 (consolidated democracy)</td><td>PolityV project</td></tr></tbody></table>

ones indicated by PLC models that have already been included in the single country, time series tests of the theory; second, the comparative, panel covariates, which isolate the effects of the institutions of each country on the PLC.

I) Standard PLC variables. First, we verify that the total number of laws should reach a low point in the first months following the appointment of a new parliament and achieve a peak (or to show an upward trend) in the last months of the legislature, provided that the legislative elections be held at their expected time. We have created two dummy variables to capture this tendency: 1) A dummy variable *StartlegiX* takes the value 1 in the first *X* ($X = 3, 6, 12$) months at the beginning of a new legislature and 0 otherwise; 2) A dummy variable, called *EndlegiX*, which takes the value 1 in the last *X* ($X = 3, 6, 12$) months before a legislative election and 0 otherwise.<fnref n="14" /> To confirm that the *EndlegiX* and *StartlegiX* variables capture a PLC, rather than other dynamic properties of legislative production, we also include a “time-to-end-of-legislature” variable, *time*; it is basically a linear trend that increases by 1 unit since the first month of the legislature until its end.

We include also the dummy variable *EarlyX* to control for legislatures that ended prematurely (i.e., whenever elections occurred before the time normally foreseen by the constitution), which takes a value of 1 in the same number of months before the elections identified by the value of *X* of the variable *Endlegi* estimated in that model: thus in every model *EndlegiX* captures the legislatures that ended in the expected time, while *EarlyX* those - if any - when the parliament has been dissolved before the due term. Another legislative dummy variable is *Extra*, which identifies the months during which either no parliamentary session is held or when there is a summer or holiday recess. In this sense, *Extra* is meant to capture months without any legislative activity that might at least in part explain the presence of zeros in the monthly counts.

Furthermore, the PLC theory emphasizes the importance of the size and the cohesion of the government majority in influencing the dynamics of the production of laws. Following Lagona and Padovano (2008), we consider a majority index *Maj.gm*, which measures the minimum percentage of the parliamentary seats held by the government

coalition in either the higher or lower house.<fnref n="15" /> We expect larger majorities to scale up the production of laws. The homogeneity index *Hom.gm* instead measures the fractionalization of the government coalition relative to that of the opposition; it is the ratio of the Herfindahl indexes of the parliamentary seats of the government majority and of those belonging to the opposition. Less homogenous majorities with respect to the opposition should result in larger production of laws because they have to satisfy a larger scope of distinct interests and constituents. *Ceteris paribus*, in these cases the PLC should be of greater magnitude.

II) Comparative variables. Several dummy variables have been considered to verify the effects of different institutional features on the PLC, such as the form of government, the electoral system, the level of decentralization and the effects of democracy. *Govsystem* takes the value of 1 to control for presidential and semi-presidential systems, and 0 for parliamentary ones. To consider the occasions in which presidential systems experience divided governments, we have introduced a dummy *Divided*, which takes the values of 0 for the countries-years when the party or coalition of the President or Prime Minister had the majority in the lower legislative chamber. Since in parliamentary systems the legislative can force the executive to resign by a no confidence vote, the variability of this regressor is concentrated in countries with a presidential or a semi-presidential system. *Electrule* is also a binary variable that denotes the type of electoral system that the country is adopting in that year. It takes the value of 1 if a country uses a PR system and 0 if it uses a majority or a plurality rule system. *Decentralization* is based on the IMF's *Fiscal Decentralization Database* and reflects the level of fiscal decentralization in a country. It is actually a vector of two binary variables, labelled *D1* and *D2*. The first dummy *D1* takes the value of 1 if, in country *i* at time *t*, the subnational governments' total share of “own” revenues as a proportion of the general government's total revenues lies above the sample average of 19%; and 0 otherwise. The second dummy *D2* equals 1 when, in country *i* at time *t*, the subnational governments' total share of tax revenues (regardless of whether they are classified as “own” revenues or not) as a proportion of the general government's tax revenues is above the sample average of 21%; and 0 otherwise. Both variables proxy the degree to which the competencies and the financial resources are distributed among the country's different levels of government, with a higher value indicating a more decentralized system; *D1* however focuses on revenues over which subnational governments have greater autonomy of decision, compared to overall tax revenues, whose definition of rates and bases are often mandated by the central government. We therefore expect that the multiple agent problem in particular be less serious when using the *D1* rather than the *D2* dummy, resulting in a PLC of smaller magnitude.

Finally, *Democracy* is based on a categorization of the *polity2* scores from the Polity V project, which captures a country regime spectrum on a 21 points scale, ranging from -10 (hereditary monarchy) to +10 (consolidated democracy). It is a categorical variable that allows for a classification of countries based on the characteristics of the democratic practices and institutions in place every year. Of course, in our dataset all countries have elections, which rules out pure dictatorial regimes. We assign a value of 0 to countries/observations with a *polity2* score of 5 or lower, usually called “anocracies” in the Polity V jargon. Countries with a score between 6 and 9 (i.e., with flawed or limited democratic institutions), are assigned a value of 1. Countries with a *polity2* score of 10, i.e., the so-called consolidated democracies, are assigned a value of 2. This categorization allows us to test for both linear and nonlinear correlations between levels of democracy and magnitude of PLC.

<footnote n="14">¹⁴ We must stress that in this specification, the *Startlegi* and *Endlegi* use a different omitted category each. For instance, in a legislature lasting 30 months, when *X* is set at 6, *Startlegi* compares the first 6 months to the remaining 24, while *Endlegi* compares the last 6 months to the preceding 24. Thus, there is no single “middle” period of the legislature against which both coefficients can be interpreted, but two different “rest of the legislature” periods. We thank one referee for raising the need to clarify this point.</footnote>

<footnote n="15">¹⁵ We consider the minimum value of the seats held by the government majority in either chamber under the assumption that legislative production follows a weakest link technology. See Lagona and Padovano (2008) for further discussion.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 2**
Summary statistics, dependent variable.</caption><thead><tr><th>Country</th><th>Observations (Months)</th><th>Sum of Laws</th><th>Mean</th><th>SD</th><th>Min</th><th>Median</th><th>Max</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Argentina</td><td>264</td><td>1400</td><td>5.36</td><td>5.24</td><td>0</td><td>4</td><td>31</td></tr><tr><td>Australia</td><td>432</td><td>6100</td><td>14.2</td><td>17.1</td><td>0</td><td>9</td><td>131</td></tr><tr><td>Belgium</td><td>383</td><td>5300</td><td>13.9</td><td>12.4</td><td>0</td><td>11</td><td>84</td></tr><tr><td>Brazil</td><td>552</td><td>7900</td><td>14.4</td><td>18.2</td><td>0</td><td>10</td><td>140</td></tr><tr><td>Chile</td><td>480</td><td>3300</td><td>6.8</td><td>4.17</td><td>0</td><td>6</td><td>29</td></tr><tr><td>Colombia</td><td>552</td><td>2800</td><td>4.98</td><td>6.93</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>France</td><td>432</td><td>3700</td><td>8.59</td><td>10.3</td><td>0</td><td>5</td><td>60</td></tr><tr><td>Germany</td><td>432</td><td>4300</td><td>10</td><td>11.1</td><td>0</td><td>7</td><td>71</td></tr><tr><td>Hungary</td><td>552</td><td>5200</td><td>9.4</td><td>11.5</td><td>0</td><td>6</td><td>57</td></tr><tr><td>Iceland</td><td>396</td><td>3500</td><td>8.76</td><td>15.2</td><td>0</td><td>1.5</td><td>83</td></tr><tr><td>India</td><td>552</td><td>2000</td><td>3.68</td><td>4.97</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>30</td></tr><tr><td>Ireland</td><td>432</td><td>1300</td><td>2.99</td><td>3.98</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>Israel</td><td>552</td><td>832</td><td>1.51</td><td>1.92</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>14</td></tr><tr><td>Italy</td><td>432</td><td>4300</td><td>9.9</td><td>11.5</td><td>0</td><td>8</td><td>113</td></tr><tr><td>Korea</td><td>214</td><td>6000</td><td>28.2</td><td>49.1</td><td>0</td><td>5</td><td>236</td></tr><tr><td>Poland</td><td>372</td><td>5400</td><td>14.4</td><td>11.3</td><td>0</td><td>13</td><td>81</td></tr><tr><td>Spain</td><td>458</td><td>1500</td><td>3.38</td><td>4.55</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>39</td></tr><tr><td>Sweden</td><td>432</td><td>1800</td><td>4.07</td><td>6.48</td><td>0</td><td>2</td><td>48</td></tr><tr><td>UK</td><td>432</td><td>1900</td><td>4.29</td><td>6.7</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>41</td></tr><tr><td>USA</td><td>432</td><td>8400</td><td>19.4</td><td>29.2</td><td>0</td><td>10</td><td>237</td></tr></tbody></table>

**4. Empirical strategy**

The Poisson fixed effect model is the standard approach to the analysis of panel count data. It is based on the fundamental assumption that the mean and the variance be equidispersed:

$$ 
\begin{aligned}
E[y_{it}|x_{it}, \alpha_i] &= \operatorname{Var}[y_{it}|x_{it}, \alpha_i] \\
&= \mu_{it} \\
&= \alpha_i \exp(x'_{it} \beta).
\end{aligned} 
\quad (1) 
$$

where $\mu_{it}$ is the conditional exponential mean of the Poisson distribution; $x_{it}$ represents the regressors; $\alpha_i$ represents the country fixed effects.

As already pointed out in the descriptive statistics, in our sample the total number of laws is instead largely overdispersed, with variance far greater than the mean (respectively 229 and 8.8). This is a common feature of count of laws, frequently observed in the PLC literature: it is actually the first evidence of the presence of peaks of legislative production. The most straightforward approach to deal with this issue is estimating a negative binomial type 2 function via maximum likelihood, using dummies for the country-specific effects (Cameron and Trivedi, 2013). Specifically, we allow the variance to differ from the mean by including an overdispersion term to be estimated alongside the covariates:

$$ \operatorname{Var}[y_{it}|x_{it}, \alpha_i] = \mu_{it} + \theta \mu_{it}^2 \quad (2) $$

We have therefore estimated Eq. (3) by a negative binomial type 2 maximum likelihood model with dummies representing the country-specific fixed effects:

$$ E(\text{laws})_{it} = \alpha_i \times \exp(\beta_1 \text{Startlegi15} + \beta_2 \text{EndlegiX} + \beta_3 \text{Early} + \beta_4 \text{Extra} \\ + \beta_5 \text{Maj.gm} + \beta_6 \text{Hom.gm} + \beta_7 \text{V}^T) + \epsilon_{it} \quad (3) $$

where X measures the time interval captured by the Endlegi dummy, either 3, 6 or 12 months; and V' is the vector of comparative institutional variables. Each type of these variable – i.e., the proxies for government system, for divided government, for the electoral rules, for the levels of decentralization and of democracy - will be introduced individually in the estimating equation; the presence of country fixed effects ensures that the estimated coefficient on each of these variables measures the impact of that institutional feature on the legislative cycles, keeping all other country specific factors constant. In this way we avoid the

simultaneous introduction of all the institutional dummies in the estimating equation, which would make the interpretation of the results less precise.

The estimates are reported in their exponential form for ease of interpretation. To see this, for any dummy variable $x = [d \ z]$, where z denotes all regressors other than the binary regressor d in this model:

$$ \frac{E[y|d=1, z]}{E[y|d=0, z]} = \frac{\exp(\beta_d + z'\beta_z)}{\exp(z'\beta_z)} = \exp(\beta_d) \quad (4) $$

meaning that, in any month t, the total number of laws is $\exp(\beta_d)$ times larger if the dummy variable takes the value of 1. A value of the coefficient $\beta_d < 1$ can then be interpreted as a negative sign, while a value of $\beta_d > 1$ can be interpreted as a positive one.

**5. Estimation results**

Table 3 report the estimates that verify the presence of PLC without the V' vector of the comparative institutional variables. To make sure that the estimates, in particular the EndlegiX, actually captures a surge in the number of laws being approved determined by the approaching election, rather than other dynamic properties of the legislative processes, we begin by regressing the monthly counts of laws just on the time trend. The estimates of model 1 show that, as the legislature progresses, the number of laws passed increases by circa 1 % on a monthly basis. Yet, when we add the Endlegi regressor, with X set equal at 3, 6 and 12 months before elections (model 2, 3 and 4, respectively), the estimated coefficients on that variable are all positive and statistically significant, with the peak of the cycle registered at 6 months. Before and after that time distance, the values of the estimated coefficients appear smaller, suggesting that the peak of legislative production is hill shaped. We then augment the model considering also the StartlegiX covariate (models 5–7), which presents the expected negative sign, while the estimated coefficients on the other variables remain unchanged (only the trend loses significance in models 6 and 7). The evidence supporting the existence of a legislative cycle persists when we estimate the model with country fixed effects (models 8–10), rather than a common intercept; only that the PLC variable is still significant at the 1 % level at 6 months - the peak level detected before. Finally, in models 11–13 we continue to improve the specification of the model by adding the other standard control variables of the PLC theory and country fixed effects. The estimates of these models show that the total number of laws produced is between 13 % and 31 % lower in the first three to twelve
months of a new legislature, compared to the average of the remaining months; conversely, the number of laws approved by the legislators significantly increases by 27 % in the last six months before the next elections, if these take place at their expected time. The models also accurately estimate the low legislative activity during the summertime and the months when the parliament is not in session, with a drop of legislative activity of about 45 % with respect to the average of the

legislature. As the PLC theory posits (Lagona and Padovano, 2008), the *EarlyX* variable reveals that the cycle appears only when legislatures end at their expected time; if they end early, a 30 % drop in legislative production is observed, instead of an upward peak. The scalar positive effect associated with the size of the government majority *Maj.gm* appears statistically significant, while that of a greater homogeneity of the government majority *Hom.gm* is not. Possibly, since the variance

<figure><img src="image_3.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. Legislative production of sampled countries : 1975-2010s.</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. (continued).</figcaption></figure>
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Fig. 1. (continued).</figcaption></figure>

between of *Hom.gm* is greater than the variance within, the effects of greater homogeneity are captured by the country's fixed effects. The overdispersion parameter *θ* is always significant at the 1 % level, with values ranging from 2,09 to 1,43; moreover, for all models, the likelihood ratio test of its significance (*H*1 : *θ* > 0) against the null hypothesis (*H*0 : *θ* = 0) further supports the selection of the negative binomial model over the Poisson one, which presupposes equidispersion: the null is rejected at the 1 % level. Finally, the decreasing values of the AIC test statistics show that, as we move away from the model with just the trend to those including all the variables foreseen by the PLC theory, the estimates become more informative. All in all, the estimates reported in Table 3 provide a first support of the existence of legislative cycles also in a panel setting.

The estimates of models 14–16 in Table 4 mark a first foray into comparative analysis, as the variable *EndlegiX* is interacted with country fixed effects. In this way we can compare the magnitude of the cycles for each country. France is selected as the benchmark country, due to the well-established findings about the existence of PLC there (Padovano and Gavoille, 2017). The estimates show that South Korea, the U.S., Belgium, Poland, Iceland, Germany, Australia, present legislative cycles of greater magnitude than France. This result appears robust across all specifications, i.e., when *EndlegiX* is set equal to 3, 6 and 12 months, respectively in model 14, 15 and 16. All other countries instead feature cycles of smaller magnitude. The drop of legislative activity after the election is always statistically significant and varies in sizes depending on the value of *X*. This considerable variability of the coefficients on the interaction term between *EndlegiX* and the country fixed effects shows the importance to explain such differences by looking at the institutional features that characterize the legislative processes of each country.

Table 5 therefore reports the first estimates of the full specification of Eq. (3), including the arguments of the *V'* vector of the institutional variables. Specifically, in models 17–19 of Table 5 we interact *Endlegi6* – the value of *X* which has always registered the peak of the legislative

cycle - separately with the dummy variable *Govsystem*, which equals 1 when the government is classified as presidential or semipresidential and 0 otherwise.<fnref n="16" /> As all the interacted variables are dummies, this allows us to consider all the possible combination of cases: “normal” and pre-electoral months of the legislature for both parliamentary and presidential regimes. The case of normal period of legislature (*Endlegi6* = 0) and parliamentary democracy (*Govsystem* = 0) is the baseline case. In model 17, the country fixed effects entirely capture the variance between of *Govsystem* regressor, which is time invariant; hence the first interesting results are reported in model 18, estimated with a common intercept. There, contrary to the prediction of the political economy literature on separation of powers (Persson and Tabellini, 2003; Persson et al. 1997) we find that presidential systems are associated with PLC of greater magnitude than parliamentary ones; the difference between the estimated coefficients is of 121 percentage points. In Table 9, we test statistically whether the coefficients of the interaction between *Endlegi6* and *Govsystem* (and, subsequently, between *Endlegi6* and all the institutional dummies) are of different sizes during the last 6 months before elections. The test of linear combination of parameters (essentially, a panel version of the *t*-test; Wooldridge, 2010) reported for model 18 in Table 9, rejects the null hypothesis that the difference between the estimated coefficients on (*Endlegi6* × presidential systems) and (*Endlegi6* × parliamentary systems) be equal to 0.<fnref n="17" /> A possible driver of this result is the presence of the US and South Korea, which are the countries with the highest legislative production, especially among

<footnote n="16">¹⁶ For the sake of brevity, from now on we omit the estimates of *EndlegiX* set at 3 and 12 months. The results with these alternative specifications do not qualitatively change and are available upon request.</footnote>

<footnote n="17">¹⁷ In their analysis of conditional political budget cycles, Shi and Svensson (2006) adopt the same test to verify that the estimated coefficients on the election dummies are the same between developed and developing countries.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 3**
Existence of the legislative cycle.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Specification</th><th rowspan="2">Cycle length</th><th colspan="6">Common intercept</th><th colspan="6">Fixed effects</th></tr><tr><th>Trend</th><th>3 months</th><th>6 months</th><th>12 months</th><th>3 months</th><th>6 months</th><th>12 months</th><th>3 months</th><th>6 months</th><th>12 months</th><th>3 months</th><th>6 months</th><th>12 months</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Model</td><td>1</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>2</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>3</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>4</td><td>1.00***<br>(0.00)</td><td>5</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>6</td><td>1.00<br>(0.00)</td><td>7</td><td>1.00<br>(0.00)</td><td>8</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>9</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>10</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>11</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>12</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>13</td></tr><tr><td>Time</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>StartlegiX</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>EarlyX</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Extra</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Maj.gm</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Hom.gm</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Overdispersion θ</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Observations</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Loglikelihood</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>χ²</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>AIC</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

Standard errors are in parentheses. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

presidential democracies. Once we remove these potential outliers from the sample, the estimates (model 19) show that the presidential and parliamentary systems apparently have the same impact on legislative cycles; the test reported in Table 9 for model 19, fails to reject the null hypothesis that the difference between the estimated coefficients on (Endlegi6 × presidential systems) and (Endlegi6 × parliamentary systems) be equal to zero. In this smaller sample, both forms of government appear characterized by a similar lack of political accountability, measured by the PLC.

The lack of support for of the political economy models of the separation of powers leads us to verify whether this result is attributable to situations of divided governments, which may affect legislative output in a rather complex way. The distinction of the cases of unified and divided governments allows us to estimate Eq. (3) with fixed effects. Legislative cycles emerge and are significant at the 1 % level both when governments are unified and divided; the size of the estimated coefficients on divided government is larger than on unified ones, both when we consider the whole sample (model 20: 17 percentage points) and just the subsample of presidential democracies (model 21: 29 percentage points). The test reported in Table 9 however fail to reject the null that the difference on the estimated coefficients on (Endlegi6 × Divided=1) and (Endlegi6 × Divided=0) equals 0; yet this result is borderline, as the p-value associated to model 21 with the subsample of presidential systems is 12 %. All the other regressors maintain their expected signs. We can therefore conclude that divided governments may produce legislative cycles, as suggested in the literature review; the relationship between government systems and the dynamics of legislative production should be further explored.

The next step of the comparative analysis is the interaction of Endlegi6 and the Electoral rule covariates. The estimates of model 22 in Table 6 confirm that PR systems generate less electoral accountability than plurality ones. The estimated coefficients on the interaction terms indicate that the total number of laws approved towards the end of a legislature in countries that use the PR system is 67 percentage points higher than in those adopting a plurality system (2.00–1.33). The test reported in Table 9 for model 22 rejects the null hypothesis that such difference is statistically equal to 0. The drop of legislative activity in the first 6 months of the legislature is equal to 31 % in the whole sample, the other covariates have all their expected signs.<fnref n="18" />

In Table 7, we explore the effects of fiscal decentralization on legislative cycles, interacting Endlegi6 with two indicators of the country’s degree of decentralization. Model 23 uses the variable D1 about subnational governments’ own revenues, namely the one less likely to be affected by the “multiple agent” problem. The estimated coefficients on the interaction terms show 28 percentage points (1,31–1,03) more laws in more decentralized countries. When instead we adopt the D2 index of decentralization, based on the ratio of subnational over general government tax revenues, the size of the legislative cycle however becomes much more important: about 64 percentage points separate the estimated coefficient on the interaction term of Endlegi6 with the dummies indicating countries above and below the average value of the D2 index (1.67–1.03), and is statistically significant (model 24). This variable is more likely to include all possible forms of agency problems associated with decentralization, especially the multiple agent one; hence the

<footnote n="18">¹⁸ According to the political economy literature, the effects of government and electoral systems on legislative cycles may be due either to a lack of political accountability, or to larger amounts of broad-based public goods legislation being approved at the end of the legislature, or both. The available data do not allow us to tell which effect is at play or, if they both are, which one is stronger. To do so, in the context of the PLC theory, requires information about the content of the legislation passed, to check whether it deals with “general public goods” or if it redistributes private ones. Unfortunately, such information is not available at the moment. These two effects are however complementary; hence the results obtained so far provide a valid test of the PLC theory.</footnote>
<table><caption>**Table 4**
Existence of legislative cycles, plus interactive terms.</caption><thead><tr><th>Cycle length</th><th>3 months</th><th>6 months</th><th>12 months</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Model</td><td>14</td><td>15</td><td>16</td></tr><tr><td>Time</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>StartlegiX</td><td>0.84**<br>(0.07)</td><td>0.70***<br>(0.04)</td><td>0.93*<br>(0.04)</td></tr><tr><td>EarlyX</td><td>0.97<br>(0.12)</td><td>0.77*<br>(0.10)</td><td>0.98<br>(0.10)</td></tr><tr><td>Extra</td><td>0.56***<br>(0.03)</td><td>0.55***<br>(0.03)</td><td>0.55***<br>(0.03)</td></tr><tr><td>Maj.gm</td><td>1.22**<br>(0.10)</td><td>1.21**<br>(0.10)</td><td>1.23**<br>(0.10)</td></tr><tr><td>Hom.gm</td><td>1.00<br>(0.01)</td><td>1.00<br>(0.01)</td><td>0.99<br>(0.01)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 0 * France</td><td>1.00<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.00<br>(0.00)</td><td>0.99<br>(0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * South Korea</td><td>5.84**<br>(4.27)</td><td>4.96***<br>(1.65)</td><td>3.13***<br>(0.84)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * USA</td><td>5.39***<br>(0.85)</td><td>3.59***<br>(0.48)</td><td>2.56***<br>(0.31)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Belgium</td><td>2.82***<br>(0.51)</td><td>2.21***<br>(0.32)</td><td>1.65***<br>(0.21)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Poland</td><td>1.98***<br>(0.41)</td><td>2.01***<br>(0.28)</td><td>1.63***<br>(0.18)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Germany</td><td>1.26<br>(0.26)</td><td>1.54***<br>(0.23)</td><td>1.30**<br>(0.15)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Australia</td><td>1.04<br>(0.30)</td><td>1.50**<br>(0.27)</td><td>1.41***<br>(0.18)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Iceland</td><td>1.34<br>(0.37)</td><td>1.33<br>(0.27)</td><td>0.93<br>(0.17)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Brazil</td><td>0.78<br>(0.18)</td><td>1.28<br>(0.20)</td><td>1.45***<br>(0.20)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Italy</td><td>0.86<br>(0.35)</td><td>0.92<br>(0.19)</td><td>0.88<br>(0.12)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Hungary</td><td>0.57*<br>(0.19)</td><td>0.99<br>(0.19)</td><td>1.08<br>(0.15)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * France</td><td>0.19***<br>(0.08)</td><td>0.62**<br>(0.15)</td><td>0.78<br>(0.16)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Chile</td><td>0.68***<br>(0.08)</td><td>0.59***<br>(0.06)</td><td>0.51***<br>(0.05)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Colombia</td><td>0.47**<br>(0.15)</td><td>0.52***<br>(0.11)</td><td>0.54***<br>(0.08)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Sweden</td><td>0.06***<br>(0.02)</td><td>0.53***<br>(0.11)</td><td>0.41***<br>(0.07)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Spain</td><td>0.11***<br>(0.06)</td><td>0.41***<br>(0.11)</td><td>0.35***<br>(0.06)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * UK</td><td>0.49**<br>(0.15)</td><td>0.36***<br>(0.10)</td><td>0.37***<br>(0.07)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Argentina</td><td>0.31***<br>(0.05)</td><td>0.32***<br>(0.04)</td><td>0.44***<br>(0.05)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Ireland</td><td>0.29***<br>(0.08)</td><td>0.27***<br>(0.06)</td><td>0.26***<br>(0.04)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * Israel</td><td>0.22***<br>(0.05)</td><td>0.23***<br>(0.04)</td><td>0.22***<br>(0.03)</td></tr><tr><td>EndlegiX (X = 3, 6, 12) = 1 * India</td><td>0.20***<br>(0.05)</td><td>0.25***<br>(0.05)</td><td>0.22***<br>(0.04)</td></tr><tr><td>Overdispersion θ</td><td>1.44***<br>(0.03)</td><td>1.44***<br>(0.03)</td><td>1.46***<br>(0.03)</td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>7.73***<br>(0.57)</td><td>9.10***<br>(0.73)</td><td>8.05***<br>(0.70)</td></tr><tr><td>Observations</td><td>7803</td><td>7803</td><td>7803</td></tr><tr><td>Loglikelihood</td><td>-23120</td><td>-23126</td><td>-23172</td></tr><tr><td>χ<sup>2</sup></td><td>3266</td><td>3202</td><td>3151</td></tr><tr><td>AIC</td><td>46333.872</td><td>46346.934</td><td>46437.103</td></tr></tbody></table>

Standard errors are in parentheses. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

<table><caption>**Table 5**
Legislative cycles and government systems.</caption><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Specification<br>Sample</th><th colspan="2">Fixed effects</th><th colspan="2">Common intercept</th><th colspan="2">Fixed effects</th></tr><tr><th>All units</th><th>All units</th><th>All units</th><th>Excluding USA and South<br>Korea</th><th>Parliamentary and<br>presidential systems</th><th>Only presidential<br>systems</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Model</td><td>17</td><td>18</td><td>19</td><td>19</td><td>20</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>Time</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.00*<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.01***<br>(0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>Startlegi6</td><td>0.69***<br>(0.04)</td><td>0.61***<br>(0.04)</td><td>0.72***<br>(0.05)</td><td>0.69***<br>(0.04)</td><td>0.80***<br>(0.07)</td><td>0.80***<br>(0.07)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 0 * Parliamentary (Govsystem=0)</td><td>1.00<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.00<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.00<br>(0.00)</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 0 * Presidential (Govsystem=1)</td><td>0.80***<br>(0.06)</td><td>1.92***<br>(0.08)</td><td>1.63***<br>(0.06)</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 1 * Parliamentary (Govsystem=0)</td><td>1.29***<br>(0.08)</td><td>1.48***<br>(0.11)</td><td>1.37***<br>(0.10)</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 1 * Presidential (Govsystem=1)</td><td></td><td>2.69***<br>(0.24)</td><td>1.40***<br>(0.12)</td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 0 * Divided gov = 1</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>1.00<br>(0.00)</td><td>1.00<br>(0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 0 * Divided gov = 0</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>1.02<br>(0.05)</td><td>1.04<br>(0.05)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 1 * Divided gov = 1</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>1.43***<br>(0.15)</td><td>1.55***<br>(0.17)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 1 * Divided gov = 0</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td>1.26***<br>(0.09)</td><td>1.26**<br>(0.12)</td></tr><tr><td>EarlyX</td><td>0.69***<br>(0.09)</td><td>0.55***<br>(0.08)</td><td>0.68***<br>(0.10)</td><td></td><td>0.70***<br>(0.09)</td><td>0.50***<br>(0.10)</td></tr><tr><td>Extra</td><td>0.56***<br>(0.03)</td><td>0.50***<br>(0.03)</td><td>0.41***<br>(0.03)</td><td></td><td>0.56***<br>(0.03)</td><td>0.92<br>(0.06)</td></tr><tr><td>Maj.gm</td><td>1.19**<br>(0.10)</td><td>1.73***<br>(0.15)</td><td>1.20**<br>(0.10)</td><td></td><td>1.20**<br>(0.10)</td><td>1.34**<br>(0.17)</td></tr><tr><td>Hom.gm</td><td>1.00<br>(0.01)</td><td>0.93***<br>(0.01)</td><td>0.95***<br>(0.01)</td><td></td><td>1.00<br>(0.01)</td><td>0.99<br>(0.01)</td></tr><tr><td>Overdispersion θ</td><td>1.46***<br>(0.03)</td><td>1.86***<br>(0.04)</td><td>1.78***<br>(0.04)</td><td></td><td>1.46***<br>(0.03)</td><td>1.19***<br>(0.04)</td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>6.19***<br>(0.70)</td><td>6.77***<br>(0.33)</td><td>6.62***<br>(0.31)</td><td></td><td>4.85***<br>(0.46)</td><td>4.83***<br>(0.52)</td></tr><tr><td>Observations</td><td>7803</td><td>7803</td><td>7193</td><td></td><td>7803</td><td>2869</td></tr><tr><td>Loglikelihood</td><td>-23177</td><td>-23934</td><td>-21453</td><td></td><td>-23176</td><td>-9650</td></tr><tr><td>χ<sup>2</sup></td><td>2963</td><td>593.6</td><td>439.5</td><td></td><td>2963</td><td>789.1</td></tr><tr><td>AIC</td><td>47799.996</td><td>47890.489</td><td>42928.515</td><td></td><td>46411.66</td><td>19335.42</td></tr></tbody></table>

Standard errors are in parentheses. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1
<table><caption>**Table 6**
Legislative cycles and electoral rules.</caption><thead><tr><th>Specification</th><th>Fixed effects</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Model</td><td>22</td></tr><tr><td>Time</td><td>1.01*** (0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>Startlegi6</td><td>0.69*** (0.04)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 0 * Plurality (Electrule=0)</td><td>1.00 (0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 0 * Proportional rule (Electrule=1)</td><td>1.63*** (0.21)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 1 * Plurality (Electrule=0)</td><td>1.33*** (0.11)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 1 * Proportional (Electrule=1)</td><td>2.00*** (0.27)</td></tr><tr><td>EarlyX</td><td>0.70*** (0.09)</td></tr><tr><td>Extra</td><td>0.56*** (0.03)</td></tr><tr><td>Maj.gm</td><td>1.28*** (0.11)</td></tr><tr><td>Hom.gm</td><td>1.00 (0.01)</td></tr><tr><td>Overdispersion θ</td><td>1.46*** (0.03)</td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>2.99*** (0.49)</td></tr><tr><td>Observations</td><td>7803</td></tr><tr><td>Loglikelihood</td><td>-23170</td></tr><tr><td>χ<sup>2</sup></td><td>2972</td></tr><tr><td>AIC</td><td>46400.618</td></tr></tbody></table>

Standard errors are in parentheses. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

<table><caption>**Table 7**
Legislative cycles and decentralization).</caption><caption>Dependent variable: Total number of laws</caption><thead><tr><th>Model</th><th>23</th><th>24</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Time</td><td>1.01*** (0.00)</td><td>1.01*** (0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>Startlegi6</td><td>0.62*** (0.05)</td><td>0.63*** (0.04)</td></tr><tr><td>D1. Endlegi6 = 0 × Below average –<br>(Decentralization=0)</td><td>1.00** (0.00)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>D1. Endlegi6 = 0 × Above average –<br>(Decentralization=1)</td><td>0.71*** (0.09)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>D1. Endlegi6 = 1 × Below average –<br>(Decentralization=0)</td><td>1.03 (0.08)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>D1. Endlegi6 = 1 × Above average –<br>(Decentralization=1)</td><td>1.31** (0.16)</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>D2. Endlegi6 = 0 × Below average –<br>(Decentralization=0)</td><td></td><td>1.00 (0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>D2. Endlegi6 = 0 × Above average –<br>(Decentralization=1)</td><td></td><td>0.96 (0.07)</td></tr><tr><td>D2. Endlegi6 = 1 × Below average –<br>(Decentralization=0)</td><td></td><td>1.03 (0.07)</td></tr><tr><td>D2. Endlegi6 = 1 × Above average –<br>(Decentralization=1)</td><td></td><td>1.67*** (0.18)</td></tr><tr><td>EarlyX</td><td>0.82 (0.14)</td><td>0.77* (0.11)</td></tr><tr><td>Extra</td><td>0.54*** (0.04)</td><td>0.55*** (0.04)</td></tr><tr><td>Maj.gm</td><td>1.46*** (0.16)</td><td>1.28** (0.13)</td></tr><tr><td>Hom.gm</td><td>0.92** (0.03)</td><td>0.95 (0.03)</td></tr><tr><td>Overdispersion θ</td><td>1.46*** (0.04)</td><td>1.38*** (0.03)</td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>14.59*** (1.75)</td><td>13.14*** (1.05)</td></tr><tr><td>Observations</td><td>5006</td><td>5898</td></tr><tr><td>Loglikelihood</td><td>-14631</td><td>-17419</td></tr><tr><td>χ<sup>2</sup></td><td>2205</td><td>2747</td></tr><tr><td>AIC</td><td>29318.691</td><td>34893.756</td></tr></tbody></table>

Standard errors are in parentheses. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

greater impact on the PLC compared to the one measured by the D1 variable. The tests reported in Table 9 for model 23 and 24 both reject the null that the difference (Endlegi6 × above average D1 or D2) – (Endlegi6 × below average D1 or D2) is equal to 0. The estimated coefficients on the other covariates do not qualitatively change. All in all, these findings support the idea that decentralized countries may have more complex government structures and more overlaps of competences, possibly exacerbated by common pool, soft budget constraint and multiple agent problems. All these sources of inefficiencies in the voters-representatives agency relationship generate a greater increase in legislation as the new general elections approach. These results confirm that the agency inefficiencies embedded in decentralization generate also dynamic distortions in policy decisions, evidenced by PLCs of greater magnitude.

Finally, the estimates of model 25 in Table 8 point out that the relationship between the level of democracy and PLC is nonlinear – it

<table><caption>**Table 8**
Legislative cycles and levels of democracy.</caption><caption>Dependent variable: Total number of laws</caption><thead><tr><th>Model</th><th>25</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Time</td><td>1.01*** (0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>Startlegi6</td><td>0.69*** (0.04)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 0 × Anocracies and Hybrid regimes (polity2 ≤ 5)</td><td>1.00 (0.00)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 0 × Imperfect democracies (5 &lt; polity2 ≤ 9)</td><td>1.21** (0.10)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 0 × Full democracies (polity2 = 10)</td><td>1.20** (0.09)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 1 × Anocracies and Hybrid regimes (polity2 ≤ 5)</td><td>2.60*** (0.40)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 1 × Imperfect democracies (5 &lt; polity2 ≤ 9)</td><td>1.19* (0.13)</td></tr><tr><td>Endlegi6 = 1 × Full democracies (polity2 = 10)</td><td>1.66*** (0.16)</td></tr><tr><td>EarlyX</td><td>0.66*** (0.09)</td></tr><tr><td>Extra</td><td>0.58*** (0.03)</td></tr><tr><td>Maj.gm</td><td>1.20** (0.10)</td></tr><tr><td>Hom.gm</td><td>1.00 (0.01)</td></tr><tr><td>Overdispersion θ</td><td>1.39*** (0.03)</td></tr><tr><td>Constant</td><td>4.49*** (0.55)</td></tr><tr><td>Observations</td><td>7270</td></tr><tr><td>Loglikelihood</td><td>-21584</td></tr><tr><td>χ<sup>2</sup></td><td>2940</td></tr><tr><td>AIC</td><td>43230.417</td></tr></tbody></table>

Standard errors are in parentheses. *** p < 0.01, ** p < 0.05, * p < 0.1

<table><caption>**Table 9**
Test of hypotheses.</caption><thead><tr><th>Model</th><th>Coefficient</th><th>Standard error</th><th>Z-score</th><th>P-value</th><th>[95% confidence interval]</th><th>Result</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="7">HO: Endlegi6 × presidential system – Endlegi6 × parliamentary systems = 0</td></tr><tr><td>18</td><td>0.59</td><td>0.104</td><td>5.72</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.4 0.8</td><td>Reject</td></tr><tr><td>19</td><td>0.02</td><td>0.098</td><td>0.21</td><td>0.831</td><td>-0.17 0.21</td><td>Fail to reject</td></tr><tr><td colspan="7">HO: Endlegi6 × divided governments) – Endlegi6 × unified governments = 0</td></tr><tr><td>20</td><td>0.13</td><td>0.111</td><td>1.16</td><td>0.247</td><td>-0.09 0.35</td><td>Fail to reject</td></tr><tr><td>21</td><td>0.2</td><td>0.13</td><td>1.56</td><td>0.118</td><td>-0.05 0.46</td><td>Fail to reject</td></tr><tr><td colspan="7">HO: Endlegi6 × proportional rule – Endlegi6 × majority rule = 0</td></tr><tr><td>22</td><td>0.41</td><td>0.16</td><td>2.52</td><td>0.012</td><td>.09.72</td><td>Reject</td></tr><tr><td colspan="7">HO: Endlegi6 × above average D1 – Endlegi6 × below D1 = 0</td></tr><tr><td>23</td><td>0.24</td><td>0.131</td><td>1.82</td><td>0.068</td><td>-0.02 0.5</td><td>Reject</td></tr><tr><td colspan="7">HO: Endlegi6 × above average D2 – Endlegi6 × below D2 = 0</td></tr><tr><td>24</td><td>0.48</td><td>0.11</td><td>4.21</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.26 0.71</td><td>Reject</td></tr><tr><td colspan="7">HO: Endlegi6 × anocracies and hybrid regimes – Endlegi6 × imperfect democracies = 0</td></tr><tr><td>25</td><td>0.77</td><td>0.167</td><td>4.66</td><td>0.000</td><td>0.45 1.11</td><td>Reject</td></tr><tr><td colspan="7">HO: Endlegi6 × full democracies – Endlegi6 × imperfect democracies = 0</td></tr><tr><td>25</td><td>0.33</td><td>0.10</td><td>3.22</td><td>0.001</td><td>0.13 0.53</td><td>Reject</td></tr><tr><td colspan="7">HO: Endlegi6 × anocracies and hybrid regimes) – Endlegi6 × full democracies = 0</td></tr><tr><td>25</td><td>0.44</td><td>0.16</td><td>2.77</td><td>0.006</td><td>0.13 0.76</td><td>Reject</td></tr></tbody></table>

actually looks like an asymmetric U-shaped one. The size of the PLC is in fact greater for countries classified as anocracies (with polity2 scores equal or below 5) and as full democracies (with polity2 scores equal to 10), compared to countries classified as imperfect democracies (with a polity2 score between 6 and 9). Democracies placed at the opposite ends of the polity2 spectrum produce around 160 % (for anocracies) and 66 % (for full democracies) more laws as the elections draw near. Conversely, imperfect democracies appear to produce almost no legislation cycles, since the number of laws produced remains relatively stable at the end of the legislature compared to the previous months. The estimated coefficient denotes a 19 % increase, which is significant only at the 10 % level. The tests reported in Table 9 confirm the nonlinearity of the relationship, as they show that the null hypothesis that the interacted coefficients associated with the end of the legislature are equal (in a pairwise manner) is always rejected. Hence, the hypothesis of a nonlinear relationship between levels of democracy and PLC is
<table><caption>**Table 10a**
Test of the rush-to-the-end hypothesis: Germany (1975–2006).</caption><thead><tr><th>Year</th><th>Laws</th><th>Mean enactment time (months)</th><th>SD</th><th>Min</th><th>Max</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1977</td><td>49</td><td>6.204</td><td>2.533</td><td>0</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td>1978</td><td>77</td><td>7.221</td><td>3.485</td><td>2</td><td>17</td></tr><tr><td>1979</td><td>91</td><td>10.385</td><td>6.373</td><td>1</td><td>29</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1980*</strong></td><td><strong>121</strong></td><td><strong>10.488</strong></td><td><strong>7.344</strong></td><td><strong>1</strong></td><td><strong>37</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1981</td><td>49</td><td>6.265</td><td>2.379</td><td>2</td><td>12</td></tr><tr><td>1982</td><td>63</td><td>8.159</td><td>5.703</td><td>1</td><td>25</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1983</strong></td><td><strong>40</strong></td><td><strong>7.375</strong></td><td><strong>5.097</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>25</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1984</td><td>72</td><td>8.361</td><td>4.545</td><td>1</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>1985</td><td>107</td><td>10.85</td><td>7.876</td><td>0</td><td>31</td></tr><tr><td>1986</td><td>102</td><td>12.373</td><td>9.354</td><td>1</td><td>38</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1987*</strong></td><td><strong>51</strong></td><td><strong>7.549</strong></td><td><strong>8.661</strong></td><td><strong>1</strong></td><td><strong>44</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1988</td><td>78</td><td>7.59</td><td>3.985</td><td>0</td><td>21</td></tr><tr><td>1989</td><td>90</td><td>8.422</td><td>5.530</td><td>0</td><td>23</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1990*</strong></td><td><strong>149</strong></td><td><strong>9.215</strong></td><td><strong>7.704</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>53</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1991</td><td>74</td><td>5.635</td><td>5.122</td><td>0</td><td>27</td></tr><tr><td>1992</td><td>110</td><td>7.391</td><td>4.645</td><td>1</td><td>23</td></tr><tr><td>1993</td><td>123</td><td>8.398</td><td>4.845</td><td>0</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1994*</strong></td><td><strong>203</strong></td><td><strong>9.828</strong></td><td><strong>6.427</strong></td><td><strong>1</strong></td><td><strong>41</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1995</td><td>65</td><td>8.431</td><td>9.136</td><td>0</td><td>53</td></tr><tr><td>1996</td><td>129</td><td>8.349</td><td>6.918</td><td>0</td><td>53</td></tr><tr><td>1997</td><td>143</td><td>10.783</td><td>8.984</td><td>1</td><td>78</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1998*</strong></td><td><strong>223</strong></td><td><strong>8.511</strong></td><td><strong>6.040</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>43</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1999</td><td>71</td><td>5.028</td><td>5.345</td><td>0</td><td>45</td></tr><tr><td>2000</td><td>122</td><td>6.902</td><td>3.782</td><td>0</td><td>20</td></tr><tr><td>2001</td><td>155</td><td>7.31</td><td>4.461</td><td>1</td><td>43</td></tr><tr><td><strong>2002*</strong></td><td><strong>197</strong></td><td><strong>7.071</strong></td><td><strong>4.591</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>42</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2003</td><td>97</td><td>5.485</td><td>2.685</td><td>1</td><td>14</td></tr><tr><td>2004</td><td>163</td><td>6.319</td><td>3.303</td><td>1</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>2005</td><td>120</td><td>6.992</td><td>3.530</td><td>1</td><td>18</td></tr></tbody></table>

supported against the alternative of a positive linear correlation. The magnitude of the PLC in anocracies and in well-established democracies can be explained by a combination of two factors. In anocracies, a lack of electoral accountability and checks and balances, due to the mix of democratic and authoritarian elements that characterize these regimes, generate larger PLC. In fully competitive democracies, incumbent governments are forced to reveal their competence by taking more policy decisions and thus approving a larger number of laws right before the elections, when such strategy maximizes their chances of re-election over the opponent (Padovano and Petrarca, 2012).<fnref n="19" /> In democracies that are neither flawed nor full, these incentives are not as strong.

## 6. Counterargument: test of the “rush to the end” hypothesis

An often-used counterargument to the PLC explanation of the peaks of legislative production can be called “rush-to-the-end hypothesis”. This alternative view, stemming mainly from studies of constitutional law, rationalizes the spikes in the production of laws at the end of the legislature as the attempt of legislators to pass as many laws as possible before the elections, for fear that they decay when the parliament is dissolved and the whole process has to be started again in the next parliament. The sheer magnitude of the cycles that we have registered in the present analysis makes the “rush-to-the-end” hypothesis not very plausible, at least as a unique explanation; nevertheless, an alternative empirical test allows to verify the robustness of the PLC explanation against the “rush to the end” hypothesis. This test examines the pace of the legislative process, i.e., the time interval that spans between the proposal of a bill and its final approval. For the rush to the end hypothesis to be supported by the data, we should observe shorter periods

<table><caption>**Table 10b**
Test of the rush-to-the-end hypothesis: USA (1975–2010).</caption><thead><tr><th>Year</th><th>Laws</th><th>Mean enactment time (months)</th><th>SD</th><th>Min</th><th>Max</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>1975</td><td>197</td><td>4.426</td><td>3.198</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1976*</strong></td><td><strong>455</strong></td><td><strong>9.356</strong></td><td><strong>6.126</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>21</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1977</td><td>216</td><td>4.486</td><td>2.965</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1978*</strong></td><td><strong>506</strong></td><td><strong>10.982</strong></td><td><strong>6.654</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>21</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1979</td><td>193</td><td>5.285</td><td>3.262</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1980*</strong></td><td><strong>451</strong></td><td><strong>10.018</strong></td><td><strong>6.369</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>23</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1981</td><td>119</td><td>4.445</td><td>3.270</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1982*</strong></td><td><strong>223</strong></td><td><strong>9.534</strong></td><td><strong>6.528</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>23</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1983</td><td>213</td><td>6.211</td><td>5.518</td><td>0</td><td>22</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1984*</strong></td><td><strong>331</strong></td><td><strong>9.792</strong></td><td><strong>6.490</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>21</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1985</td><td>108</td><td>3.556</td><td>3.030</td><td>0</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1986*</strong></td><td><strong>279</strong></td><td><strong>9.154</strong></td><td><strong>6.588</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>22</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1987</td><td>126</td><td>4.183</td><td>3.248</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1988*</strong></td><td><strong>387</strong></td><td><strong>8.941</strong></td><td><strong>6.245</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>22</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1989</td><td>132</td><td>3.909</td><td>3.247</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1990*</strong></td><td><strong>302</strong></td><td><strong>8.364</strong></td><td><strong>6.441</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>22</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1993</td><td>211</td><td>3.45</td><td>2.991</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1994*</strong></td><td><strong>261</strong></td><td><strong>7.421</strong></td><td><strong>6.222</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>21</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1995</td><td>88</td><td>3.989</td><td>3.472</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1996*</strong></td><td><strong>249</strong></td><td><strong>7.173</strong></td><td><strong>5.988</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>21</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1997</td><td>157</td><td>3.197</td><td>2.772</td><td>0</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td><strong>1998*</strong></td><td><strong>247</strong></td><td><strong>8.874</strong></td><td><strong>6.480</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>22</strong></td></tr><tr><td>1999</td><td>172</td><td>4.308</td><td>3.365</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>2000*</strong></td><td><strong>427</strong></td><td><strong>8.829</strong></td><td><strong>6.266</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>23</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2001</td><td>107</td><td>3.206</td><td>2.767</td><td>0</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td><strong>2002*</strong></td><td><strong>272</strong></td><td><strong>8.254</strong></td><td><strong>6.070</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>23</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2003</td><td>192</td><td>3.745</td><td>2.954</td><td>0</td><td>11</td></tr><tr><td><strong>2004*</strong></td><td><strong>293</strong></td><td><strong>8.143</strong></td><td><strong>6.466</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>22</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2005</td><td>160</td><td>3.587</td><td>3.343</td><td>0</td><td>10</td></tr><tr><td><strong>2006*</strong></td><td><strong>309</strong></td><td><strong>8.298</strong></td><td><strong>6.704</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>22</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2007</td><td>188</td><td>3.803</td><td>3.802</td><td>0</td><td>23</td></tr><tr><td><strong>2008*</strong></td><td><strong>285</strong></td><td><strong>6.565</strong></td><td><strong>6.023</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>21</strong></td></tr><tr><td>2009</td><td>125</td><td>2.928</td><td>2.518</td><td>0</td><td>9</td></tr><tr><td><strong>2010*</strong></td><td><strong>223</strong></td><td><strong>6.543</strong></td><td><strong>6.149</strong></td><td><strong>0</strong></td><td><strong>23</strong></td></tr></tbody></table>

for approving laws at the end of legislatures, i.e., the pace of the legislative process should increase as the elections approach.

Tables 10a and 10b illustrate the pace of the legislative process in Germany (1975–2006) and the US (1975–2010), respectively, using data from the DCPLC. These are the only new countries for which such a test is possible, because information about both the date of the proposal and of approval of each bill are available only for these two countries.<fnref n="20" /> First, the German case, reported in Table 10a, reveals no considerable drop in the average time to approve laws in any year. Despite a slight increase of pace in 1987 compared to the previous year, the next four election years do not display any acceleration of pace in the legislative process compared to the previous years. Second, the US case, reported in Table 10b, reveals that the pace of the legislative process becomes much slower in election years; if anything, it takes a longer time to enact laws towards the end of the legislatures than in earlier stages. This is quite the opposite to what the “rush to the end” hypothesis predicts. Overall, these findings add to the robustness of the PLC theory, at least in the German and US contexts for which data are available.<fnref n="21" />

<footnote>* denotes years when legislative elections were held at the expected date.</footnote>

<footnote n="19">¹⁹ We have also tested whether voters’ turnout, as an indicator of citizens’ participation in the electoral process, has an impact on the PLC. The prediction is that when turnout is higher, the PLC should be lower, because the agency relationship with representatives is more efficient. The results of the estimates, available upon request, never attain the level of statistical significance.</footnote>

<footnote>* denotes years where legislative elections were held at the expected date.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">²⁰ Lagona and Padovano (2008) have already performed a similar test using data about Italy. They found no support for the rush to the end hypothesis, as the average time needed to approve laws in the Italian parliament is characterized by a very low variance around the mean.</footnote>

<footnote n="21">²¹ Legislative processes are complex phenomena, and the political science literature has shown that they may be affected also by other conditioning factors, such as changes in the agenda of the government (especially in parliamentary democracies), by the content of the legislation, by the quality of the bureaucracy. All these drivers may also distort the optimal decision-making path of approval of legislation, thus generating a PLC. While indeed interesting, these analyses go beyond the scope of this paper and require data that we do not possess so far.</footnote>
## 7. Conclusion

Our study reveals that the PLC theory is verified also when using data from countries characterized by different institutional features. We find that the legislative activity of parliaments, measured by the number of primary laws approved, decreases circa by 31 % in the first months of a legislature and increases by the approximately 27 % near its end. This finding is robust when testing for different durations of the pre-electoral period (3, 6 and 12 months). We have gone further than the existing literature by correlating this result with different government systems, electoral rules, levels of decentralization and degrees of democracy that characterize the countries in our sample. The estimates show that the magnitude of the PLC is significantly higher in (1) proportional electoral systems compared to majoritarian ones; (2) in presidential systems undergoing phases of divided governments; (3) in countries with higher degrees of fiscal decentralization. Conversely, the magnitudes of the PLC are comparable for countries placed at opposite ends of the degree of democracy spectrum offered by the Polity V database.

These results are important also for policy purposes, especially in the domain of institutional reforms. In this respect, the results of the conditional PLC analysis prove to be especially relevant because, just like the conditional PBC literature, they offer a quantitative measure of the inefficiencies in the agency relationship between voters and their representatives; moreover, these measures can also be correlated with their institutional determinants, as we have done in the present analysis.

Quantitative measures are important in institutional reforms, as they assess the relative importance of the different sources of inefficiencies, thus setting priorities for the reform process and providing benchmarks against which the impact of the reforms already enacted can be evaluated. In this respect, the measures offered by the legislative cycles are more informative than those of any other indicator, because they refer to the totality of policy decisions, none of which can produce real effects if it is not enacted by an approved law.

The current crisis of democracies has several components, and a major one is certainly the greater inefficiencies in the relationship linking voters to their representatives. In this respect, the quantitative nature of the findings of this paper suggests a list of priorities, where institutional reforms could enhance accountability relatively more. The first domain of reform is government decentralization, where asymmetries in the delegation of the power to tax and spend worsen electoral accountability to a very large extent. The second important area of reform are electoral systems, where majoritarian ones should be preferred to PR. Alternative forms of government instead appear not as important in generating accountability as theory predicts. Finally, also full democracies can be characterized by incentives to distort the timing of legislative production, aimed at maximizing the probability of re-election. More in depth analyses of the dynamics and determinants of legislative production, after this first exploration, are certainly warranted.

## Appendix

<table><caption>Summary statistics, Explanatory variables</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Maj.gm</th><th>Hom.gm</th><th>Govsystem</th><th>Electrule</th><th>Unified</th><th>D1</th><th>D2</th><th>Polity2</th><th>Democracy</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Country</td><td>Mean</td><td>SD</td><td>Mean</td><td>SD</td><td>Mean</td><td>SD</td><td>Mean</td><td>SD</td><td>Mean</td></tr><tr><td>Argentina</td><td>.375</td><td>.174</td><td>6.36</td><td>6.92</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>.49</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Australia</td><td>.322</td><td>.218</td><td>1.13</td><td>.474</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Belgium</td><td>.114</td><td>.026</td><td>1.01</td><td>.389</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Brazil</td><td>.173</td><td>.179</td><td>1.27</td><td>.731</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>.5</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Chile</td><td>.272</td><td>.255</td><td>1.16</td><td>.496</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>.23</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Colombia</td><td>.26</td><td>.181</td><td>1.74</td><td>1.97</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>.52</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>France</td><td>.083</td><td>.121</td><td>1.57</td><td>.326</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>.75</td><td>1</td></tr><tr><td>Germany</td><td>.115</td><td>.092</td><td>1.05</td><td>.436</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Hungary</td><td>.571</td><td>.388</td><td>1.76</td><td>.835</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>.65</td><td>1</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Iceland</td><td>.202</td><td>.052</td><td>1.44</td><td>.341</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>India</td><td>.256</td><td>.302</td><td>4.08</td><td>4.11</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Ireland</td><td>.146</td><td>.188</td><td>1.46</td><td>.598</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>1</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Israel</td><td>.069</td><td>.063</td><td>1.39</td><td>.852</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Italy</td><td>.269</td><td>.248</td><td>1.32</td><td>.505</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>.67</td><td>1</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Korea</td><td>.379</td><td>.158</td><td>1.68</td><td>.892</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>.72</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Poland</td><td>.191</td><td>.212</td><td>1.72</td><td>.733</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>.97</td><td>.58</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Spain</td><td>.389</td><td>.195</td><td>1.91</td><td>.584</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>Sweden</td><td>.145</td><td>.157</td><td>1.91</td><td>1.15</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>UK</td><td>.552</td><td>.102</td><td>1.55</td><td>.309</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>1</td><td>0</td></tr><tr><td>USA</td><td>.497</td><td>.089</td><td>1</td><td>.0058</td><td>1</td><td>0</td><td>0</td><td>.4</td><td>0</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Data availability

Data will be made available on request.

## References

Aidt, T., Veiga, F., Veiga, L., 2011. Election results and opportunistic policies: a new test of the rational political business cycle model. Public Choice 148, 21–44.

Alesina, A., Rosenthal, H., 1996. A theory of divided government. Econometrica 64, 1311–1341.

Arulampalam, W., Dasgupta, S., Dhillon, A., Dutta, B., 2009. Electoral goals and centre-state transfers in India. J. Dev. Econ. 88, 103–119.

Baumgartner, F.R., Brouard, S., Grossman, E., Lazardeux, S.G., Moody, J., 2014. Divided government and policy change. Governance 27, 423–447.

Becker, G.S., 1983. A theory of competition among pressure groups for political influence. Q. J. Econ. 98, 371–400.

Besley, T., Persson, T., Sturm, D., 2010. Political competition, policy and growth: theory and evidence from the United States. Rev. Econ. Stud. 77, 1329–1352.

Brechler, J., Gersl, A., 2014. Political legislation cycle in the Czech Republic. Const. Political Econ. 25, 137–153.

Brennan, G., Buchanan, J.M., 1980. The power to tax. Analytical foundations of a fiscal constitution. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Cameron, A.C., Trivedi, P.K., 2013. Cambridge. Regression analysis of count data. Cambridge University Press.

Dattilo, M., Padovano, F., 2025. The cycle of decrees: evidence from the Italian parliament. Eur. J. Law Econ. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10657-024-09831-x.
De Haan, J., Klomp, J., 2013. Conditional political budget cycles: a review of recent evidence. Public Choice 157, 387-410.

Edwards, G.C., Barrett, A., Peake, J., 1997. The legislative impact of divided government. Am. J. Political Sci. 41, 545-563.

Franzese, R.J., 2010. The multiple effects of multiple policymakers: veto actors bargaining in common pools. Riv. Ital. di Sci. Polit. 40, 341-370.

Funk, P., Gathmann, C., 2013. How do electoral systems affect fiscal policy? Evidence from cantonal parliaments, 1890-2000. J. Eur. Econ. Assoc. 11, 1178-1203.

Gagliarducci, S., Nannicini, T., Naticchioni, P., 2011. Electoral rules and politicians' behavior: a micro test. Am. Econ. J. Econ. Policy 3, 144-174.

Gratton, G., Holden, R., Kolotilin, A., 2018. When to drop a bombshell. Rev. Econ. Stud. 85, 2139-2172.

Gratton, G., Guiso, L., Michelacci, C., Morelli, M., 2021. From weber to kafka: political instability and the overproduction of laws. Am. Econ. Rev. 111, 2964-3003.

Kovats, L., 2013. Do elections set the pace? A quantitative assessment of the timing of european legislation. In The EU Timescape. Routledge, London, pp. 60-76.

Lagona, F., Padovano, F., 2008. The political legislation cycle. Public Choice 134, 201-229.

Lagona, F., Padovano, F., 2021. How does legislative behavior change when the country becomes democratic? The case of South Korea. Eur. J. Political Econ. 69, 102-126.

Lagona, F., Maruotti, A., Padovano, F., 2015. Multilevel multivariate modelling of legislative count data, with a hidden Markov chain. J. R. Stat. Soc. Ser. A (Stat. Soc.) 178, 705-723.

McCormick, R.E., Tollison, R.D., 1981. an inquiry into the interest-group theory of government. New York. In: Politicians, legislation, and the economy. Springer.

Marshall, M.G., Gurr, T.R., 2020. Polity V: political regime characteristics and transitions, 1800-2018. Center for Systemic Peace.

Padovano, F., 2025. Political legislation cycles. In: In: Jong-a-Pin, R., Bjørnskov, C. (Eds.), Elgar Encyclopedia of Public Choice. Edward Elgar Publishing Co., (forthcoming), Cheltenham.

Padovano, F., 2014. Distribution of transfers and soft budget spending behaviors: evidence from Italian regions. Public Choice 161, 11-29.

Padovano, F., Gavoille, N., 2017. Legislative cycles in a semipresidential system. J. Inst. Theor. Econ. 173, 470-498.

Padovano, F., Petrarca, I., 2012. A theory of cyclical production of laws and decrees. Cent. Condorcet Political Econ. Work. Pap. ccr 9-12.

Padovano, F., Ricciuti, R., 2009. Political competition and economic performance: evidence from the Italian regions. Public Choice 138, 263-277.

Padovano, F., Veselova, O., 2024. Political legislation cycles in Ukraine. Condorcet Cent. Political Econ. Work. Pap. 2024ccr.

Peltzman, S., 1976. Toward a more general theory of regulation. J. Law Econ. 19, 211-240.

Persson, T., Roland, G., Tabellini, G., 1997. Separation of powers and political accountability. Q. J. Econ. 112, 1163-1202.

Persson, T., Roland, G., Tabellini, G., 2000. Comparative politics and public finance. J. Political Econ. 108, 1121-1161.

Persson, T., Tabellini, G., 2003. Boston, MIT press. economic effects of constitutions. The.

Rodden, J., Eskeland, G., 2003. fiscal decentralization and the challenge of hard budget constraint. Boston (Eds.). MIT Press.

Rogers, James R., 2005. The impact of divided government on legislative production. Public Choice 123, 217-233.

Rogoff, K., 1990. Equilibrium political budget cycles. Am. Econ. Rev. 80, 21-36.

Shi, M., Svensson, J., 2006. Political budget cycles: do they differ across countries and why? J. Public Econ. 90, 1367-1389.

Sy, Y., 2023. The database of comparative political legislation cycles (1975-2010 s). Condorcet Cent. Political Econ. Work. Pap. ccr 001, 2023.

Tsebelis, G., 2002. Veto players: how political institutions work. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Veiga, L.G., Efthyvoulou, G., Morozumi, A., 2019. Political budget cycles: conditioning factors and new evidence. In: Goetz, In.K.H. (Ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Time and Politics (online). Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Willumsen, D.M., Stecker, C., Goetz, K.H., 2018. The electoral connection in staggered parliaments: Evidence from Australia, France, Germany and Japan. European J. Polit. Res. 57 (3), 759-780.

Wooldridge, J.M., 2010. *Econometric analysis of cross section and panel data* II ed. MIT Press, Cambridge.