Title:
Setting discretionary fiscal policy within the limits of budgetary institutions: evidence from American state governments

Simple item page
dc.contributor.advisor Willoughby, Katherine
dc.contributor.author Guo, Hai en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Eger, Robert
dc.contributor.committeeMember Kingsley, Gordon
dc.contributor.committeeMember Sjoquist, David
dc.contributor.committeeMember Wallace, Sally
dc.contributor.department Public Policy en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2008-09-17T19:33:17Z
dc.date.available 2008-09-17T19:33:17Z
dc.date.issued 2008-06-30 en_US
dc.description.abstract Unanticipated economic fluctuations exert pressure on state governments to adjust their discretionary fiscal policies to accommodate the changing fiscal situation. Even though states adjust fiscal policy as the economy fluctuates, the typical cyclical economic factors are not the sole determinant of such adjustments. State governments budgeting systems in the United States operate under a variety of budgetary institutions. The most prominent state government budgetary institutions include balanced budget rules (BBRs), tax and expenditure limits (TELs), and supermajority voting requirements for tax increases. This dissertation examines how these budgetary institutions affect state government choices of fiscal policy under different economic conditions. To better understand the effect of state level TELs, a stringency index of state level TEL is constructed considering the major structural features. The fixed-effect panel regressions are used for the analysis of impact of TEL and BBR and tax changes and the fixed-effect Tobit is adopted to test the impact of TEL and BBR on spending cuts after the budget is adopted. The result suggests that TEL plays a more important role affecting states discretionary fiscal adjustment from the tax side, while BBR plays a more important role affecting states discretionary fiscal adjustment from the expenditure side. Results of this research show that TEL exerts pressure on states that hinder state ability to deal with volatile fiscal situations, especially in the case of periods of budget crises. en_US
dc.description.degree Ph.D. en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/24738
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology en_US
dc.subject Discretionary fiscal policy en_US
dc.subject Budgetary institutions en_US
dc.subject TEL en_US
dc.subject BBR en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Fiscal policy
dc.subject.lcsh Economic policy
dc.subject.lcsh Taxation
dc.subject.lcsh Budget United States States
dc.subject.lcsh Budget surpluses
dc.subject.lcsh Budget deficits
dc.subject.lcsh Budgeting
dc.subject.lcsh State governments
dc.subject.lcsh Federal government
dc.subject.lcsh Tobits
dc.subject.lcsh Budget process
dc.subject.lcsh Tax and expenditure limitations
dc.subject.lcsh Government spending policy
dc.title Setting discretionary fiscal policy within the limits of budgetary institutions: evidence from American state governments en_US
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Dissertation
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.corporatename School of Public Policy
local.contributor.corporatename Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication a3789037-aec2-41bb-9888-1a95104b7f8c
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication b1049ff1-5166-442c-9e14-ad804b064e38
Files
Original bundle
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Thumbnail Image
Name:
guo_hai_200808_phd.pdf
Size:
787.73 KB
Format:
Adobe Portable Document Format
Description:
Download
Collections
Theses and Dissertations