Fiscal consequences of budget baselines

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Crain, WM; Crain, NV
• 署名单位: George Mason University; Shenandoah University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0047-2727
• DOI: 10.1016/S0047-2727(97)00063-7
• 发表日期: 1998
• 页码: 421-436
• 关键词: budget institutions; state fiscal policy; prospect theory; framing hypothesis

摘要

Governments have two main choices for a budgetary baseline procedure: the dollars spent the year before, or the level of services that those dollars bought which is labelled a current services baseline. This paper analyzes the effects of different baselines on fiscal policy. first by developing a conceptual framework and then by examining American state data to compare government spending patterns under alternative baseline rules. Controlling for a host of institutional, economic, and demographic factors, we estimate that a current services baseline rule raises the annual growth rate in state spending by half a percentage point. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science S.A.