Regime type aside, the findings on electoral and party systems are weak or
contrary to expectations. The extent of political competition has no significant
relationship with growth or inflationary crises, though it does have a small affect on
the predicted probability of a fiscal crisis. As shown in Table 3, as the gap between
the vote shares of the top two parties goes from low (1%) to high (57%), the
likelihood of a fiscal crisis rises from 1% to 5%. Similarly, the indicator for
executive strength only has a statistically significant relationship with fiscal crises,
albeit in a manner contrary to expectations. Increasing the power of the chief
executive from low to high increases the predicted probability of a fiscal crisis from
8% to 16%.15 These results suggest that the checks and balances associated with
electoral competition and strong legislatures, rather than power concentrated in
dominant parties or executives, provide safeguards against fiscal crises