Henrique Coelho Kawamura

This study aimed to verify whether in Brazil, in fact, there is opportunism by politicians, characterizing the so-called political cycle. For this we used the five components of municipal expenditures to observe the occurrence of positive impulses in the election year. We also used the political variables such as the Fiscal Responsibility Law (LRF) and Amendment to Re-election (ER) and political parties. To reach the goal proposed the most suitable after a review of major theoretical and practical issue was the use of econometrics of panel data in five election including 3414 municipal elections, 1992-2008. The results indicate strong opportunism in municipal expenditure in an election year. They also indicate that the Amendment's Re-election contributed to an increase in expenses in order to achieve re-election, despite the Fiscal Responsibility Law trying to reduce such expenses. For political parties it is observed that there are differences in their administrations according to their ideological orientations.