| Abstract: |
Like many other developed economies, the United States has imposed fiscal
rules in attempting to impose a degree of fiscal discipline on the political
process of budget determination. The federal government has operated under a
series of budget control regimes that have been complex in nature and of
debatable impact. Much of the complexity of these federal budget regimes
relates to the structure of the U.S. federal government. The controversy over
the impact of different regimes relates to the fact that the rules have no
constitutional standing, leading to the question of whether they do more than
clarify a government's intended policies. In this paper, I review US federal
budget rules and present some evidence on their possible effects. From an
analysis of how components of the federal budget behaved under the different
budget regimes, it appears that the rules did have some effects, rather than
simply being statements of policy intentions. The rules may also have had some
success at deficit control, although such conclusions are highly tentative
given the many other factors at work during the different periods. Even less
certain is the extent to which the various rules achieved whatever objectives
underlay their introduction. |