IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/5449.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Budget Institutions and Fiscal Policy in the U.S. States

Author

Listed:
  • James M. Poterba

Abstract

This paper summarizes state balanced budget requirements, and the available empirical evidence on the effect of these rules on state fiscal policies. Existing state rules differ from many current proposals at the federal level. They are typically restricted to part of the state budget, they frequently permit short term borrowing, and they lack formal enforcement mechanisms. The paper also surveys previous research on how anti-deficit provisions affect state fiscal policy. The available evidence indicates that stringent anti-deficit provisions lead to more rapid adjustment of state taxes and expenditures when fiscal deficits emerge. This suggests that changing the federal budget process has the potential to affect federal fiscal policy.

Suggested Citation

  • James M. Poterba, 1996. "Budget Institutions and Fiscal Policy in the U.S. States," NBER Working Papers 5449, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5449
    Note: PE
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5449.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Poterba, James M., 1995. "Balanced Budget Rules and Fiscal Policy: Evidence From the States," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 48(3), pages 329-336, September.
    2. Bunch, Beverly S, 1991. "The Effect of Constitutional Debt Limits on Stage Governments' Use of Public Authorities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 68(1-3), pages 57-69, January.
    3. Poterba, James M., 1995. "Balanced Budget Rules and Fiscal Policy: Evidence From the States," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 48(3), pages 329-36, September.
    4. 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.
    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. Milesi-Ferretti, Gian Maria, 2004. "Good, bad or ugly? On the effects of fiscal rules with creative accounting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1-2), pages 377-394, January.
    2. Niklas Potrafke, 2023. "The Economic Consequences of Fiscal Rules," CESifo Working Paper Series 10765, CESifo.
    3. Bernardino Benito & Francisco Bastida & Cristina Vicente, 2013. "Creating Room for Manoeuvre: a Strategy to Generate Political Budget Cycles under Fiscal Rules," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 66(4), pages 467-496, November.
    4. Wagner, Gary A., 2003. "Are state budget stabilization funds only the illusion of savings?: Evidence from stationary panel data," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 213-238.
    5. Azzimonti, Marina & Battaglini, Marco & Coate, Stephen, 2016. "The costs and benefits of balanced budget rules: Lessons from a political economy model of fiscal policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 45-61.
    6. Feld, Lars P & Kirchgassner, Gebhard, 2001. "Does Direct Democracy Reduce Public Debt? Evidence from Swiss Municipalities," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 109(3-4), pages 347-370, December.
    7. Marco Battaglini & Stephen Coate, 2008. "A Dynamic Theory of Public Spending, Taxation, and Debt," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 201-236, March.
    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. Jorge Martinez-Vazquez & Violeta Vulovic, 2017. "How well do subnational borrowing regulations work?," Chapters, in: Naoyuki Yoshino & Peter J. Morgan (ed.), Central and Local Government Relations in Asia, chapter 5, pages 161-220, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    10. Claudio A. Agostini, 2007. "The Impact of State Corporate Taxes on FDI Location," Public Finance Review, , vol. 35(3), pages 335-360, May.
    11. Dashkeev, Vladimir V & Turnovsky, Stephen J, 2018. "Balanced-budget rules and risk-sharing in a fiscal union," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 277-298.
    12. Veronica Grembi & Alvaro Manoel, 2012. "Fiscal rules for subnational governments? Evidence from Latin America," Chapters, in: Giorgio Brosio & Juan P. Jiménez (ed.), Decentralization and Reform in Latin America, chapter 12, pages iii-iii, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    13. Du, Juntao & Shen, Zhiyang & Song, Malin & Vardanyan, Michael, 2023. "The role of green financing in facilitating renewable energy transition in China: Perspectives from energy governance, environmental regulation, and market reforms," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    14. Marco Battaglini, 2009. "On the Case for a Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution," 2009 Meeting Papers 131, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Gebhard Kirchgassner, 2002. "The effects of fiscal institutions on public finance: a survey of the empirical evidence," Chapters, in: Stanley L. Winer & Hirofumi Shibata (ed.), Political Economy and Public Finance, chapter 9, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Mr. Guiseppe Pisauro, 2001. "Intergovernmental Relations and Fiscal Discipline: Between Commons and Soft Budget Constraints," IMF Working Papers 2001/065, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Juan Pablo Jiménez & Leonardo Letelier & Ignacio Ruelas & Jaime Bonet-Morón, 2021. "Reglas fiscales subnacionales: Revisión empírica, experiencias internacionales y sus desafíos en la nueva institucionalidad fiscal post COVID," Documentos de trabajo sobre Economía Regional y Urbana 300, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    18. Sounman Hong, 2015. "Fiscal Rules in Recessions," Public Finance Review, , vol. 43(4), pages 505-528, July.
    19. Fatas, Antonio & Mihov, Ilian, 2006. "The macroeconomic effects of fiscal rules in the US states," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(1-2), pages 101-117, January.
    20. Étienne Farvaque & Martial Foucault & Marcelin Joanis, 2015. "L’endettement public des provinces canadiennes : Les règles d’équilibre budgétaire sont-elles efficaces?," CIRANO Working Papers 2015s-10, CIRANO.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H61 - Public Economics - - National Budget, Deficit, and Debt - - - Budget; Budget Systems

    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:nbr:nberwo:5449. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.