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Do Budget Rules Work?

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Author Info
James M. Poterba

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Abstract

The design of budget rules and institutions, long a neglected area in public finance and macroeconomics, has recently been thrust to center stage by the debate over a balanced budget amendment and other deficit-reduction measures in the United States. This paper describes the existing evidence on how budget rules affect fiscal policy outcomes. It contrasts the `institutional irrelevance view,' which holds that budget rules can be circumvented by modifying accounting practices and changing the nominal timing or other classification of taxes and expenditures, with the `public choice view' in which fiscal institutions represent important constraints on the behavior of political actors. Several distinct strands of empirical evidence, from the U.S. federal experience with anti-deficit rules, from U.S. state experience with balanced budget rules, and from international comparisons of budget outcomes in nations with different fiscal institutions, suggest that fiscal institutions do matter. These results reject the institutional irrelevance view. The existing evidence is not refined enough, however, to provide detailed advice on how narrowly-defined changes in budget rules might affect policy outcomes.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5550.

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Date of creation: Oct 1997
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5550

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
H61 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Budget; Budget Systems
E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy

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  1. Von Hagen, J., 1992. "Budgeting Procedures and Fiscal Performance in the European Communities," European Economy - Economic Papers 96, Commission of the EC, Directorate-General for Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN).
  2. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-71, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Gramlich, Edward M, 1990. "U.S. Federal Budget Deficits and Gramm-Rudman-Hollings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(2), pages 75-80, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. Alan J. Auerbach & Jagadeesh Gokhale & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1991. "Generational Accounts - A Meaningful Alternative to Deficit Accounting," NBER Working Papers 3589, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  5. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, 1988. "The Line Item Veto and Public Sector Budgets: Evidence from the States," NBER Working Papers 2531, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas, 1988. "The line item veto and public sector budgets : Evidence from the states," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 269-292, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. 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.
  8. Ronald J. Shadbegian, 1996. "Do Tax And Expenditure Limitations Affect The Size And Growth Of State Government?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 14(1), pages 22-35, 01. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Weingast, Barry R & Marshall, William J, 1988. "The Industrial Organization of Congress; or, Why Legislatures, Like Firms, Are Not Organized as Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(1), pages 132-63, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  10. von Hagen, Jurgen & Harden, Ian J., 1995. "Budget processes and commitment to fiscal discipline," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(3-4), pages 771-779, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Bayoumi, Tamim & Goldstein, Morris & Woglom, Geoffrey, 1995. "Do Credit Markets Discipline Sovereign Borrowers? Evidence from US States," CEPR Discussion Papers 1088, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  12. Adam S. Posen, 1995. "Declarations Are Not Enough: Financial Sector Sources of Central Bank Independence," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 253-274 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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