Affiliation:
1. Gwynedd Mercy University
Abstract
Abstract
Do governmental institutions constrain state actors? I investigate this question by examining the relationship between the design of state legislative fiscal offices and the health of state budgets. These budgetary bodies serve a supporting role for legislatures, designed to advance sound fiscal policy and sustainable public finance. With an original data set encompassing all state legislative budgetary bodies from 1963 to 2014, I estimate the causal effects of nonpartisan fiscal offices on budget surpluses with a generalized difference-in-differences estimator. My results show that the presence of these fiscal offices within legislatures does not affect a state’s fiscal well-being. This result holds even when legislative fiscal offices are relatively empowered in the budget process, raising doubts about how state lawmakers use nonpartisan budgetary information in funding the government.
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Marketing,Public Administration,Sociology and Political Science