Mobility, Budget Rules and Government Spending

在过去的几年里，美国联邦政府和州政府面临着非常相似的预算缺口，但他们对此的反应方式截然不同。虽然联邦政府实施了减税并大幅增加了支出，但大多数州的做法恰恰相反。这种明显的差异在很大程度上是因为大多数州都采用了一项宪法条款，但美国宪法中没有这一条款，该条款严格限制借款，除非为持久的改善提供资金。这一条款通常被称为黄金法则，一直被视为将纳税人和政府服务接受者的身份统一起来的一种方式。对于普通支出，受益人主要是当代人，因此需要预算平衡，这要求用同期的税收提供资金；对于资本改善，福利溢出到后代，可以通过发行债务来支付。但是，有什么理由在州一级而不是在联邦一级证明黄金法则是合理的呢？这项规定对各州来说是不是不必要的束缚，会导致政府规模的剧烈而痛苦的波动？或者，在联邦一级缺乏税收是导致巨额赤字的诱因，从而将税收负担转嫁给子孙后代？或者，在一种情况下采用该规则，而在另一种情况下不采用该规则，是否有道理？该项目开发了一个动态的政治经济模型，以定量研究不同预算规则的绩效。在该模式中，不同年龄的个人根据宪法规定的融资规则，对政府部门的规模和构成进行投票。在作出个人选择和投票时，个人都会考虑当前政策选择对未来经济发展的影响。在个人对公共投资的偏好中，跨税收管辖区的流动性发挥着关键作用。例如，美国居民在任何给定年份迁出美国的概率远远低于他/她在同一年死亡的概率。相比之下，年轻人和中年人每年跨过州界的可能性大约是他们死亡概率的10倍。这种明显的差异意味着，当代和未来几代人之间的冲突在这两种情况下有着非常不同的含义，这意味着可能需要在州和联邦一级建立不同的财政机构。最近联邦赤字的卷土重来可能会重新引发关于应该对年度预算过程施加限制以确保财政纪律的辩论，以及关于美国宪法平衡预算修正案是否合适的辩论。类似的辩论在欧盟已经非常激烈，《欧洲稳定公约》对赤字支出施加了严格的限制(至少在原则上)，没有区分其不同的类别。本项目提出的分析对于就此类财政机构的设计作出明智的决定将是非常有价值的。

In the last couple of years, the U.S. federal government and the state governments have faced very similar budget shortfalls, but they have reacted to them in radically different ways. While the federal government enacted tax cuts and significantly increased its spending, most states have done exactly the opposite. The stark difference is in large part due to a constitutional provision, adopted by most states but absent from the U.S.Constitution, that severely restricts borrowing, except to finance lasting improvements.This provision, commonly known as the golden rule, has been seen as a way of aligning the identities of the taxpayers and the recipients of government services. For ordinary expenses, beneficiaries are mainly current generations, hence the requirement of budget balance, which mandates funding with contemporaneous tax receipts; for capital improvements, benefits spill over to future generations, that can be made to pay by issuing debt. But what justifies the golden rule at the state level and not at the federal level? Is this rule a needless straitjacket for the states, that causes severe and painful fluctuations in the size of their government? Or is its lack at the federal level an incentive to run large deficits, shifting the burden of taxes onto future generations? Or is there a rationale for adopting the rule in one context, but not in the other? This project develops a dynamic, politico-economic model to study quantitatively the performance of different budget rules. In the model, individuals of different ages vote over the size and composition of the government sector, subject to the financing rules laid out in the constitution. In making their private choices as well as in casting their votes, individuals take into account the repercussions of current policy choices on the future path of the economy. A key role in an individual's preferences over public investment is played by mobility across tax jurisdictions. As an example, the probability that a U.S. resident will move out of the country in any given year is much lower than his/her probability of death in the same year. By contrast, young and middle-age people face a yearly probability of moving across state lines that is about 10 times as high as their probability of death. This stark difference implies that the conflict between current and future generations has a very different meaning in the two cases, and it implies that different fiscal institutions at the state and federal level may be warranted.The recent resurgence of the federal deficit is likely to rekindle the debate on the restrictions that should be imposed on the yearly budgeting process to insure fiscal discipline, and on the appropriateness of a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A similar debate is already very lively in the European Union, where the European Stability Pact imposes (in principle, at least) tight bounds to deficit spending, without distinguishing between its different categories. The analysis proposed in this project will be very valuable in making informed decisions on the design of such fiscal institutions.