| Abstract |
The political economy literature has established the existence of a political business cycle, where politicians act primarily near election years in order to improve their party's prospects of victory. We use monthly panel data at the country level to show that climate legislation tends to occur just before elections. More climate laws than average are passed in the six months before an election, and fewer climate laws than average are passed in the six months after the election winners begin their terms in office. We then look into democracy indicators, to find that unconsolidated democracies are drive the increase in climate legislation before elections while consolidated democracies drive the decrease in legislation at the beginning of a new term. Autocracies do not follow this cycle, and more climate laws are passed at the beginning of a new term in these countries. Climate legislation thus appears to be a form of political advertising, and is used before elections in democracies and after elections in autocracies.
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