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Aug 28, 2013

Sylff@Tokyo: Elections and Economic Cycles in Autocratic Regimes

Higashijima, center, with the Tokyo Foundation program officers

Higashijima, center, with the Tokyo Foundation program officers

Masaaki Higashijima, who received a Sylff fellowship from Waseda University in 2008, visited the Tokyo Foundation on August 12, 2013. Masaaki is enrolled in PhD programs at Waseda and Michigan State University and is currently writing a dissertation at MSU.

His research analyzes the correlation between elections and economic cycles on the assumption that leaders tend to adopt an expansionary fiscal policy before an election, resulting in post-election slowdowns. Masaaki is paying special attention to autocratic regimes, although the trend had been considered applicable exclusively to multi-party democracies. He is trying to demonstrate that a correlation between elections and economic performance also exists in autocratic regimes.

We believe that Masaaki’s profound analysis can help shed new light on the ties between politics and fiscal policy and wish him all the best with his dissertation.

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