By discussing the available theoretical and empirical literature, this paper argues that budget procedures and budget institutions do influence budget outcomes. Budget institutions include both procedural rules and balanced budget laws. We critically assess theoretical contributions in this area...

Most states (Vermont is the exception) have a constitutional or statutory limitation restricting their ability to run deficits in the state's general fund. Balanced budget limitations may be either prospective or beginning-of-the-year requirements or retrospective or end-of-the-year...

While most Americans have long favored a balanced federal budget , not all do. This paper uses cross-sectional differences among respondents to two public opinion polls to try to discriminate among competing hypotheses about why Americans want the budget balanced. Logit models are fit to data...

This paper reviews recent research dealing with fiscal discipline and revisit the issues of fiscal control in federal systems, focusing on selective case studies covering the 2000s, before and after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). We start by contrasting the recent fiscal history of...

The paper explores the macroeconomic consequences of fiscal consolidations whose timing and composition are uncertain. Drawing on the evidence in Alesina and Ardagna (2010), we emphasize whether or not the fiscal consolidation is driven by tax rises or expenditure cuts. We find that the...