IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ifr/wpaper/2005-03.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Dynamics of Municipal Fiscal Adjustment

Author

Listed:
  • David E. Wildasin

    (Martin School of Public Policy and Administration and Department of Economics, University of Kentucky)

  • Thiess Buettner

    (ifo and Munich University)

Abstract

The dynamic fiscal policy adjustment of local jurisdictions is investigated empirically using a panel of more than 1000 U.S. municipalities over a quarter of a century. Distinguishing own-source revenue, grants, expenditures, and debt service, the analysis is carried out using a vector error-correction model which takes account of the intertemporal budget constraint. The results indicate that a large part of the adjustment in response to fiscal imbalances takes place by offsetting changes in future expenditures. In addition, the results show that fiscal imbalances are financed to a significant extent by subsequent changes in grants. Decomposition of the sample according to average city population reveals that the basic pattern of fiscal adjustment is robust, although intergovernmental grants play a much more pronounced role in maintaining budget balance for large cities.

Suggested Citation

  • David E. Wildasin & Thiess Buettner, 2005. "The Dynamics of Municipal Fiscal Adjustment," Working Papers 2005-03, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    • Handle: RePEc:ifr:wpaper:2005-03
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ifigr.org/publication/ifir_working_papers/IFIR-WP-2005-03.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Dillinger,William R. & Webb,Steven Benjamin, 1999. "Fiscal management in federal democracies : Argentina and Brazil," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2121, The World Bank.
    3. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Newey, Whitney & Rosen, Harvey S, 1989. "The Revenues-Expenditures Nexus: Evidence from Local Government Data," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 30(2), pages 415-429, May.
    4. Clifford J. Carrubba & Matthew Gabel, 2005. "Do Governments Sway European Court of Justice Decision-making?: Evidence from Government Court Briefs," Working Papers 2005-06, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    5. McKinnon, Ronald I, 1997. "EMU as a Device for Collective Fiscal Retrenchment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 227-229, May.
    6. McCarty, Therese A & Schmidt, Stephen J, 1997. "A Vector-Autoregression Analysis of State-Government Expenditure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(2), pages 278-282, May.
    7. William Dillinger & Steven B. Webb, 1999. "Fiscal management in federal democracies: Argentina and Brazil," Económica, Departamento de Economía, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, vol. 0(3), pages 423-483.
    8. Wilcox, David W, 1989. "The Sustainability of Government Deficits: Implications of the Present-Value Borrowing Constraint," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 21(3), pages 291-306, August.
    9. Poterba, James M, 1994. "State Responses to Fiscal Crises: The Effects of Budgetary Institutions and Politics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(4), pages 799-821, August.
    10. 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.
    11. Buettner, Thiess & Wildasin, David E., 2006. "The dynamics of municipal fiscal adjustment," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(6-7), pages 1115-1132, August.
    12. 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.
    13. Clifford J. Carrubba & Matthew Gabel & Lacey Murrah & Ryan Clough & Elizabeth Montgomery & Rebecca Schambach, 2005. "National Party Politics and Supranational Politics in the European Union: New Evidence from the European Parliament," Working Papers 2005-04, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    14. Im, Kyung So & Pesaran, M. Hashem & Shin, Yongcheol, 2003. "Testing for unit roots in heterogeneous panels," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 115(1), pages 53-74, July.
    15. William Dillinger & Steven B. Webb, 1999. "Fiscal management in federal democracies: Argentina and Brazil," Económica, Instituto de Investigaciones Económicas, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, vol. 0(3), pages 423-483.
    16. 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.
    17. Badi H. Baltagi, 2021. "Econometric Analysis of Panel Data," Springer Texts in Business and Economics, Springer, edition 6, number 978-3-030-53953-5, August.
    18. Prud'homme, Remy, 1995. "The Dangers of Decentralization," The World Bank Research Observer, World Bank, vol. 10(2), pages 201-220, August.
    19. Matthew Gabel & Kenneth Scheve, 2005. "Estimating the Effect of Elite Communications on Public Opinion Using Instrumental Variables," Working Papers 2005-02, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    20. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    21. Avery, Robert B, 1977. "Error Components and Seemingly Unrelated Regressions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(1), pages 199-209, January.
    22. William H. Hoyt & J. William Harden, 2005. "MSA Location and the Impact of State Taxes on Employment and Population: A Comparison of Border and Interior MSA's," Working Papers 2005-01, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    23. James R. Hines & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "The Flypaper Effect," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 217-226, Fall.
    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. Robin Boadway & Jean-Francois Tremblay, 2005. "A Theory of Vertical Fiscal Imbalance," Working Papers 2006-04, University of Kentucky, Institute for Federalism and Intergovernmental Relations.
    3. Wildasin, David E., 2004. "The Institutions of Federalism: Toward an Analytical Framework," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 57(2), pages 247-272, June.
    4. Aaron Schneider, 2006. "Responding to fiscal stress: Fiscal institutions and fiscal adjustment in four Brazilian states," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(3), pages 402-425.
    5. Wildasin, David E., 2007. "Pre–Emption: Federal Statutory Intervention in State Taxation," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 60(3), pages 649-662, September.
    6. Hikaru Ogawa & David E. Wildasin, 2009. "Think Locally, Act Locally: Spillovers, Spillbacks, and Efficient Decentralized Policymaking," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1206-1217, September.
    7. Edward L. Glaeser, 2012. "Urban Public Finance," NBER Working Papers 18244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. 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.
    9. 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.
    10. Albert Solé-Ollé & Pilar Sorribas-Navarro, 2009. "The dynamic adjustment of local government budgets: does Spain behave differently?," Working Papers 2009/7, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    11. Albert Sol魏ll頍 & Pilar Sorribas-Navarro, 2012. "The dynamic adjustment of local government budgets: does Spain behave differently?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(25), pages 3203-3213, September.
    12. Paulo Roberto Arvate & Marcos Felipe Mendes Lopes, 2007. "Institutional Changes, Incentive Schemes And The Decision To Undertake Fiscal Adjustments," Anais do XXXV Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 35th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 010, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    13. James E. Payne, 2003. "A Survey of the International Empirical Evidence on the Tax-Spend Debate," Public Finance Review, , vol. 31(3), pages 302-324, May.
    14. Christos Kotsogiannis & Robert Schwager, 2006. "Fiscal Equalization and Yardstick Competition," CESifo Working Paper Series 1865, CESifo.
    15. Buettner, Thiess, 2009. "The contribution of equalization transfers to fiscal adjustment: Empirical results for German municipalities and a US-German comparison," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 417-431, September.
    16. Albert Solé-Ollé & Pilar Sorribas-Navarro, 2012. "The dynamic adjustment of local government budgets: does Spain behave differently?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(25), pages 3203-3213, September.
    17. Alberto Vaquero-García & María Cadaval-Sampedro & Santiago Lago-Peñas, 2022. "Do Political Factors Affect Fiscal Consolidation? Evidence From Spanish Regional Governments," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(1), pages 21582440221, March.
    18. Guy Navon, 2006. "Budgetary dynamics in the local authorities in Israel," Israel Economic Review, Bank of Israel, vol. 4(2), pages 19-52.
    19. Joshua Aizenman & Gunnar Gunnarsson, 2015. "Fiscal Challenges in Multilayered Unions: An Overview and Case Study," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-20, May.
    20. Evan Lau & Ahmad Zubaidi Baharumshah, 2005. "Assessing The Mean Reversion Behavior Of Fiscal Policy: The Case Of Asian Countries," Macroeconomics 0504002, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H70 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - General
    • H72 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Budget and Expenditures
    • H77 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Intergovernmental Relations; Federalism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ifr:wpaper:2005-03. 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: David E. Wildasin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/spukyus.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.