IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ipf/psejou/v43y2019i3p267-289.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The behavior of U.S. States’ debts and deficits

Author

Listed:
  • Maria Cornachione Kula

    (Gabelli School of Business, Roger Williams University, Bristol, USA)

Abstract

Do governments satisfy an intertemporal budget constraint? This paper uses a panel of U.S. state data from 1978-1998 to empirically investigate whether primary surpluses respond to rising debt/GDP ratios. Instead of relying solely on the time-series characteristics of various data series, the paper focuses on the response of primary surpluses when cyclical fluctuations in output and government spending are explicitly considered. Results suggest no surplus response to the accumulation of debt, whether or not cyclical fluctuations are controlled for, in contrast to similar studies done using U.S. federal government data.

Suggested Citation

  • Maria Cornachione Kula, 2019. "The behavior of U.S. States’ debts and deficits," Public Sector Economics, Institute of Public Finance, vol. 43(3), pages 267-289.
    • Handle: RePEc:ipf:psejou:v:43:y:2019:i:3:p:267-289
    DOI: 10.3326/pse.43.3.3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.pse-journal.hr/upload/files/pse/2019/3/3.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.3326/pse.43.3.3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mendoza, Enrique G. & Ostry, Jonathan D., 2008. "International evidence on fiscal solvency: Is fiscal policy "responsible"?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(6), pages 1081-1093, September.
    2. Henning Bohn, 1998. "The Behavior of U. S. Public Debt and Deficits," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 949-963.
    3. Holtz-Eakin Douglas & Rosen Harvey S. & Tilly Schuyler, 1994. "Intertemporal Analysis of State and Local Government Spending: Theory and Tests," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 159-174, March.
    4. Trehan, Bharat & Walsh, Carl E., 1988. "Common trends, the government's budget constraint, and revenue smoothing," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 12(2-3), pages 425-444.
    5. Maria Cornachione Kula, 2014. "Are US state and local governments consumption smoothers?," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 41(1), pages 87 - 100, January.
    6. Poterba, James M. & Rueben, Kim S., 2001. "Fiscal News, State Budget Rules, and Tax-Exempt Bond Yields," Journal of Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 537-562, November.
    7. Maria Cornachione Kula, 2014. "Are US state and local governments consumption smoothers?," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 41(1), pages 87-100, January.
    8. Sorensen, Bent E. & Wu, Lisa & Yosha, Oved, 2001. "Output fluctuations and fiscal policy: U.S. state and local governments 1978-1994," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 45(7), pages 1271-1310.
    9. Hamilton, James D & Flavin, Marjorie A, 1986. "On the Limitations of Government Borrowing: A Framework for EmpiricalTesting," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 808-819, September.
    10. Chaney, Barbara A. & Copley, Paul A. & Stone, Mary S., 2002. "The effect of fiscal stress and balanced budget requirements on the funding and measurement of state pension obligations," Journal of Accounting and Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 21(4-5), pages 287-313.
    11. Barro, Robert J, 1986. " U.S. Deficits since World War I," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 88(1), pages 195-122.
    12. Bayoumi, Tamim & Goldstein, Morris & Woglom, Geoffrey, 1995. "Do Credit Markets Discipline Sovereign Borrowers? Evidence from the U.S. States," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1046-1059, November.
    13. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-971, October.
    14. Bohn, Henning, 1995. "The Sustainability of Budget Deficits in a Stochastic Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(1), pages 257-271, February.
    15. Quintos, Carmela E, 1995. "Sustainability of the Deficit Process with Structural Shifts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(4), pages 409-417, October.
    16. Bohn, Henning & Inman, Robert P., 1996. "Balanced-budget rules and public deficits: evidence from the U.S. states," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 13-76, December.
    17. Henning Bohn, "undated". "Budget Balance Through Revenue or Spending Adjustments ? Some Historical Evidence for the United States (Reprint 013)," Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research Working Papers 03-91, Wharton School Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research.
    18. Canzoneri,Matthew B. & Grilli,Vittorio & Masson,Paul R. (ed.), 1992. "Establishing a Central Bank," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521420983.
    19. Trehan, Bharat & Walsh, Carl E, 1991. "Testing Intertemporal Budget Constraints: Theory and Applications to U.S. Federal Budget and Current Account Deficits," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 23(2), pages 206-223, May.
    20. Andersen, Asger Lau & Lassen, David Dreyer & Nielsen, Lasse Holbøll Westh, 2014. "The impact of late budgets on state government borrowing costs," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 27-35.
    21. Poterba, James M. & von Hagen, Jurgen (ed.), 1999. "Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226676234, December.
    22. James M. Poterba & Jürgen von Hagen, 1999. "Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number pote99-1, March.
    23. Park, Sangkyun, 1997. "The Relationship Between Government Financial Condition and Expected Tax Rates Reflected in Municipal Bond Yields," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 50(1), pages 23-38, March.
    24. Hakkio, Craig S & Rush, Mark, 1991. "Is the Budget Deficit "Too Large?"," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 29(3), pages 429-445, July.
    25. Alfred Greiner & Uwe Köller & Willi Semmler, 2007. "Debt sustainability in the European Monetary Union: Theory and empirical evidence for selected countries," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 59(2), pages 194-218, April.
    26. Bohn, Henning, 1991. "Budget balance through revenue or spending adjustments? : Some historical evidence for the United States," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 333-359, June.
    27. Liu, Pu & Thakor, Anjan V, 1984. "Interest Yields, Credit Ratings, and Economic Characteristics of State Bonds: An Empirical Analysis: A Note," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 16(3), pages 344-351, August.
    28. Bohn, Henning, 2007. "Are stationarity and cointegration restrictions really necessary for the intertemporal budget constraint?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1837-1847, October.
    29. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    30. Park, Sangkyun, 1997. "The Relationship Between Government Financial Condition and Expected Tax Rates Reflected in Municipal Bond Yields," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 50(1), pages 23-38, March.
    31. Reinhard Neck & Jan-Egbert Sturm (ed.), 2008. "Sustainability of Public Debt," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262140985, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Markus Reischmann, 2016. "Empirical Studies on Public Debt and Fiscal Transfers," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 63.
    2. Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2015. "Fiscal Transfers and Fiscal Sustainability," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(5), pages 975-1005, August.
    3. TINA M. Saeid Mahdavi, 2012. "Bohn’s Test of Fiscal Sustainability of the American State Governments The dramatic fall in state government revenues during the “Great Recession” and the resultant large budget deficits accentuated c," Working Papers 0030, College of Business, University of Texas at San Antonio.
    4. Helmut Herwartz & Malte Rengel, 2018. "Size-corrected inference in fiscal policy reaction functions: a three country assessment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 391-416, September.
    5. Paniagua, Jordi & Sapena, Juan & Tamarit, Cecilio, 2017. "Fiscal sustainability in EMU countries: A continued fiscal commitment?," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 85-97.
    6. Beqiraj, Elton & Fedeli, Silvia & Forte, Francesco, 2018. "Public debt sustainability: An empirical study on OECD countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 238-248.
    7. D’Erasmo, P. & Mendoza, E.G. & Zhang, J., 2016. "What is a Sustainable Public Debt?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 2493-2597, Elsevier.
    8. Byrne, Joseph P. & Fiess, Norbert & MacDonald, Ronald, 2011. "The global dimension to fiscal sustainability," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 137-150, June.
    9. Gabriella Deborah Legrenzi & Costas Milas, 2010. "Spend-and-Tax Adjustments and the Sustainability of the Government's Intertemporal Budget Constraint," CESifo Working Paper Series 2926, CESifo.
    10. Kyung-woo Lee & Jong-Hee Kim & Taeyoon Sung, 2018. "A test of fiscal sustainability in the EU countries," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 25(5), pages 1170-1196, October.
    11. Tilak Abeysinghe & Ananda Jayawickrama, 2013. "A segmented trend model to assess fiscal sustainability: The US experience 1929–2009," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 44(3), pages 1129-1141, June.
    12. Pierre-Yves Hénin, 1997. "Soutenabilité des déficits et ajustements budgétaires," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 48(3), pages 371-395.
    13. Reicher, Claire, 2014. "Systematic fiscal policy and macroeconomic performance: A critical overview of the literature," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 8, pages 1-37.
    14. Cho, Dooyeon & Lee, Kyung-woo, 2022. "Population aging and fiscal sustainability: Nonlinear evidence from Europe," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    15. Giancarlo Marini & Alessandro Piergallini, 2008. "Indicators and Tests of Fiscal Sustainability: An Integrated Approach," CEIS Research Paper 111, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 11 Jul 2008.
    16. K. R. Shanmugam & K. Shanmugam, 2022. "Sustainability and Threshold Value of Public Debt in Tamil Nadu," Working Papers 2022-226, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    17. Vito Polito & Mike Wickens, 2005. "Measuring Fiscal Sustainability," CDMA Conference Paper Series 0503, Centre for Dynamic Macroeconomic Analysis.
    18. Jakob Korbinian Eberl, 2016. "The Collateral Framework of the Eurosystem and Its Fiscal Implications," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 69.
    19. Niklas Potrafke & Markus Reischmann, 2012. "Fiscal Equalization Schemes and Fiscal Sustainability," ifo Working Paper Series 141, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    20. Burret Heiko T. & Köhler Ekkehard A. & Feld Lars P., 2013. "Sustainability of Public Debt in Germany – Historical Considerations and Time Series Evidence," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 233(3), pages 291-335, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    fiscal policy; fiscal sustainability; public debt; budget deficits;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • H63 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Debt; Debt Management; Sovereign Debt
    • H74 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Borrowing

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ipf:psejou:v:43:y:2019:i:3:p:267-289. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Martina Fabris (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ijfffhr.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.