Models of Political Cycles: The Czech Experience / Modely politického cyklu a jejich testování na podmínkách ČR [available in Czech only]

This paper studies whether the dynamic behavior of real GDP, unemployment and inflation is systematically affected by the timing of elections and by changes of governments in the Czech Republic. Two basic models of political cycles are tested – the political business cycle models and the partisan theories. The political business cycle models emphasize opportunistic behavior of politics who strive to achieve own reelection regardless of their party membership. On the other hand partisan politicians are faithful to their ideological opinions and therefore they attract only specific number of people. The results of the tests partly confirmed validity of opportunistic motivations in behavior of the Czech politicians. On the contrary suppositions of the partisan theories were not proved.