Politics Can Limit Policy Opportunism in Fiscal Institutions
Evidence from Official General Fund Revenue Forecasts in the American States
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11680314 |
|---|---|
| Authors | George Krause (0000-0001-6076-2363, corresponding author), David E Lewis (0000-0002-0803-0074), James W Douglas (0000-0003-3804-1337) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 271-295 |
| Publication date | 2012-12-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0276-8739 • E-ISSN: 1520-6688 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/pam.21674 |
| OpenAlex | W2111315923 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 23 |
| References cited | 62 |
Governments make policy decisions in the same areas in quite different institutions. Some assign policymaking responsibility to institutions designed to be insulated from myopic partisan and electoral pressures and others do not. In this study, we claim that differences in political context and institutional design constrain the policy choices governments make. Testable propositions based on an analysis of varying electoral incentives and time horizons created by these different contexts are empirically tested using panel data on official general fund revenue forecasts in the American states, 1987 to 2008. The empirical evidence reveals that executive branch agencies and independent commissions produce more conservative forecasts than legislatures with one important exception. Executive branch revenue forecasts in states with gubernatorial term limits are indistinguishable from legislative branch forecasts. Further, we find that legislative branch forecasts are more conservative in the presence of divided partisan legislatures than unified party government. In turn, this implies that entrusting policymaking authority to either the executive branch or an independent commission may only be consequential when the political system itself fails to check legislative excesses or executive myopia
Context (archaeology · Divided government · Economics · Executive branch · Government (linguistics · Incentive · Legislature · Market economy · Opportunism · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Revenue · Separation of powers · Fiscal Policies and Political Economy · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Law · Local Government Finance and Decentralization · Public Administration · Finance
When Push Comes to Shove
Examining the Determinants of Expenditure Forecasts
Reelection, growth and public debt
State budget periodicity and general expenditure volatility
Advancing Public Entrepreneurship through State Government Capacity and Competitiveness
An Open Systems Model of Local Government Forecasting
When Would a Democratic Governor Increase Social Welfare Funding? The Joint Moderation of a State's Economy and a Governor's Budgetary Authority
Fictional expectations and fiscal realities
Corporate tax policy and multinational corporations in the American states
The Politicization Conversation
The Impact of Subnational Fiscal Policies on Economic Growth
Budgeting and implementing fiscal policy in Italy
The electoral connection, state attorneys general, and the dynamics of incarceration rates
Political change and turnovers
Opportunistic decision-making in government
Opportunistic legislation under a natural emergency
State Revenue Forecasts and Political Acceptance
The Consequences of Legislative Term Limits for Policy Diffusion
Explaining State Budget Punctuations
Representative democracy and policy-making in the administrative state
Agency Performance Challenges and Agency Politicization
Do Institutions Matter? The Impact of Budget Expertise on State Fiscal Responsibility
The Relationship Between Short-Term Political Appointments and Bureaucratic Performance
Rationality and power
Rules and Restraint
Panel Data Econometrics
Partisan Politics, Divided Government, and the Economy
Deliberate Discretion?
Political and Monetary Institutions and Public Financial Policies in the Industrial Countries
Efficient estimation of limited dependent variable models with endogenous explanatory variables
Measuring the Independence of Central Banks and Its Effect on Policy Outcomes
Panel Data and Unobservable Individual Effects
Does Electoral Accountability Affect Economic Policy Choices? Evidence from Gubernatorial Term Limits
Separation of Powers and Political Accountability
Commentary on "Administrative Arrangements and the Political Control of Agencies"
Why a Stubborn Conservative would Run a Deficit
Limited information estimators and exogeneity tests for simultaneous probit models
Two-stage residual inclusion estimation
Elected versus Appointed Regulators
Specification Tests in Econometrics
Putting Trust in the US Budget
Delegation, Ratification, and U.S. Trade Policy
Rules, participants, and executive politics in state tax revenue forecasting
Mostly Harmless Econometrics
Testing the Rationality of State Revenue Forecasts
Measuring Citizen and Government Ideology in the U.S. States
Political distortions in state forecasts
Tax and expenditure limitations and the fiscal relationships between state and local governments
Do fiscal rules dampen the political business cycle
Congress, The Electoral Connection
Congress
State Responses to Fiscal Crises
Efficient Estimation of Time-Invariant and Rarely Changing Variables in Finite Sample Panel Analyses with Unit Fixed Effects
Of Fixed-Effects and Time-Invariant Variables
Disentangling Accountability and Competence in Elections
Explaining Bureaucratic Optimism
Concentrated Powers
The Effect of Underforecasting on the Accuracy of Revenue Forecasts by State Governments
On the Fixed-Effects Vector Decomposition
Fixed-Effects Vector Decomposition
Constraining Leviathan
State Economies and State Taxes
A Cross-National Analysis of Economic Voting
Groups, the Media, Agency Waiting Costs, and FDA Drug Approval
Political Appointments, Civil Service Systems, and Bureaucratic Competence
Organizational Structure and the Optimal Design of Policymaking Panels
Divided Government, Fiscal Institutions, and Budget Deficits
Fiscal Policy Outcomes and Electoral Accountability in American States
Spatial Models of Delegation
| Unique citing works | 23 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,77 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2026 (14) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 23 |