This paper explores how state fiscal institutions and political circumstances affect the dynamics of state taxes and spending during periods of fiscal stress. The analysis focuses on the late 1980s, when sharp economic downturns in several regions, coupled with increased expenditure demands, led...

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...

The conventional wisdom is (i) that fiscal austerity was the main culprit for the recessions experienced by many countries, especially in Europe, since 2010 and (ii) that this round of fiscal consolidation was much more costly than past ones. The contribution of this paper is a clarification of...

This paper provides a critical survey of the literature on politico-institutional determinants of the government budget. We organize our discussion around two questions: Why did certain OECD countries, but not others, accumulate large public debts? Why did these fiscal imbalances appear in the...

This paper analyzes a model in which different rational individuals vote over the composition and time profile of public spending. Potential disagreement between current and future majorities generates instability in the social choice function that aggregates individual preferences. In...

This note explores the sensitivity of the short-run savings effects ofgovernment deficits to assumptions about household planning horizons. Using alifecycle simulation model, we show that even though deficit policies shiftsizable tax burdens to future generations, individuals live long enough to...

The conventional wisdom regarding the political consequences of large reductions of budget deficits is that they are very costly for the governments which implement them: they are punished by voters at the following elections. In the present paper, instead, we find no evidence that governments...

This paper considers budget expansions and adjustments in OECD countries in the last three decades. Our main results are: i) on average fiscal expansions are the results of increases in expenditures, particularly of transfer programs, while contractions are typically due to tax increases; ii)...

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...

The present paper argues that the correct experiment to evaluate the effects of a fiscal adjustment is the simulation of fiscal plans rather than of individual fiscal shocks. The simulation of the fiscal plans adopted by 16 OECD countries over a 30-year period supports the hypothesis that the...