The Impact of Bulgarian Caretaker Governments Between 2021-2023 on the State Economy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.37075/RP.2025.3.11Keywords:
Gross domestic product, Welfare state, Government debt, Government expenditure, Parliamentary republic, Presidential republicAbstract
In their work “The Economic Effect of Constitutions”, Persson and Tabellini conclude that the constitution directly affects the economic relations in a given country. The study develops the idea that the actions of the Bulgarian caretaker governments of Stefan Yanev (May – December 2021) and Galab Donev (July 2022 – June 2023), as a consequence of a parliamentary crisis and tools in the hands of the head of state, do not exert specific influence on the macroeconomic dynamics in the country—such as is characteristic of regular cabinets in presidential republics. In other words, the caretaker cabinets do not transform economic policy in such a way that one could speak of the establishment of quasi-presidential governance (in an economic sense). Building on the dependencies that Persson and Tabellini identify between the economy and the constitution in presidential and parliamentary republics, the research concludes that the caretaker cabinets in Bulgaria align with the already established direction of economic development set by the regular cabinets of a parliamentary nature.References
Beev, I. (2022). Constitutional Economic Theory: Object, Subject, Method and Tasks. Economics and Economic Theory: Problems and Interactions, pp. 61-65. URL: https://conference.ue-varna.bg/oit2022/assets/Sbornik_dokladi_OIT_2022.pdf (accessed 8 May 2025)
Lex News (2023). The Amendments to the Constitution Passed Second Reading, One More Remains, but Revisions are Not Allowed. URL: https://news.lex.bg/Парламенът-започна-ключово-обсъждане-на-промените-в-Конституцията/ (accessed 10 October 2024)
Abadie, A., Diamond, A., & Hainmueller, J. (2010). Synthetic control methods for comparative case studies: Estimating the effect of California's tobacco control program. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 105(490), 493-505. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1198/jasa.2009.ap08746
Arts, W.A. & Gelissen, J. (2010). Models of the welfare state. The Handbook of the Welfare State (Ed. Castles F. G. and Leibfried, S. and Lewis, J. and Obinger, H. and Pierson, C.), pp. 569-584. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579396.001.0001
Eurostat (2024). Government debt down to 88.6% of GDP in euro era. URL: https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-euro-indicators/w/2-22042024-bp (accessed 15 October 2024)
Fay, S.B. (1950). Bismarck's welfare state. Current History, 18(101). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.1950.18.101.1
Shugart, M (2005). Semi-presidential systems: dual executive and mixed authority patterns. French Politics, 3(3), 323-351. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.fp.8200087
Tabellini, G. & Persson, T (2003). The economic effect of constitutions. What do the data say?*. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/2591.001.0001
Office of Management, U.S., Budget, & Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (2024). Federal surplus or deficit [-] as percent of gross domestic product. URL: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYFSDFYGDP (accessed 14 October 2024)
Vanberg, V.J. (2004). The Freiburg school: Walter Eucken and ordoliberalism. URL: https://www.eucken.de/app/uploads/04_11bw-1.pdf (accessed 7 May 2025)
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Ivaylo Beev, Yoana Nedelcheva (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright to their works.
All publications are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license.
