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Federal Budget Rules: The US Experience

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Author Info
Alan J. Auerbach

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Abstract

Like many other developed economies, the United States has imposed fiscal rules in attempting to impose a degree of fiscal discipline on the political process of budget determination. The federal government has operated under a series of budget control regimes that have been complex in nature and of debatable impact. Much of the complexity of these federal budget regimes relates to the structure of the U.S. federal government. The controversy over the impact of different regimes relates to the fact that the rules have no constitutional standing, leading to the question of whether they do more than clarify a government's intended policies. In this paper, I review US federal budget rules and present some evidence on their possible effects. From an analysis of how components of the federal budget behaved under the different budget regimes, it appears that the rules did have some effects, rather than simply being statements of policy intentions. The rules may also have had some success at deficit control, although such conclusions are highly tentative given the many other factors at work during the different periods. Even less certain is the extent to which the various rules achieved whatever objectives underlay their introduction.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14288.

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Date of creation: Aug 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14288

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
D78 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Positive Analysis of Policy-Making and Implementation
H62 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Deficit; Surplus
J11 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Demographic Trends and Forecasts

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Henning Bohn & Robert P. Inman, . "Constitutional Limitations and Public Deficits: Evidence from the U.S. States," University of California at Santa Barbara, Economics Working Paper Series 18-95, Department of Economics, UC Santa Barbara.
  2. Alan J. Auerbach, 2003. "Fiscal Policy, Past and Present," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(2003-1), pages 75-138. [Downloadable!]
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  3. Dharmapala, Dhammika, 2006. "The Congressional budget process, aggregate spending, and statutory budget rules," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 119-141, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Auerbach, Alan J., 2006. "Budget windows, sunsets, and fiscal control," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 87-100, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  5. James M. Poterba, 1997. "Do Budget Rules Work?," NBER Working Papers 5550, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Alan J. Auerbach, 2009. "Implementing the New Fiscal Policy Activism," NBER Working Papers 14725, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Alan Auerbach, 2009. "US Experience with Federal Budget Rules," CESifo DICE Report, Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 7(1), pages 41-48, 04. [Downloadable!]
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