Mobility, Budget Rules and Government Spending

在过去的几年里，美国联邦政府和州政府都面临着非常相似的预算短缺，但他们对预算短缺的反应却截然不同。虽然联邦政府颁布了减税政策并大幅增加了支出，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由于宪法中的一项条款，该条款被大多数州采纳，但在美国宪法中却没有，该条款严格限制借款，除非是为持久的改善提供资金。这一条款通常被称为黄金法则，被视为将纳税人和政府服务接受者的身份联系起来的一种方式。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收入提供资金;对于资本改进，利益可以溢出到后代，可以通过发行债务来支付。但是，是什么证明了黄金法则在州一级，而不是在联邦一级？ 这条规则对各州来说是不必要的束缚吗？它会导致政府规模的严重而痛苦的波动吗？或者说，在联邦层面上，税收的缺失是导致巨额赤字的诱因，从而将税收负担转嫁给子孙后代？或者是否有理由在一种情况下采用这一规则，而在另一种情况下不采用？ 本计画发展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组成进行投票。在做出个人选择和投票时，个人会考虑到当前政策选择对未来经济道路的影响。跨税收管辖区的流动性在个人对公共投资的偏好中发挥着关键作用。举个例子，美国居民在任何一年离开美国的概率都远低于他/她在同一年死亡的概率。相比之下，年轻人和中年人每年跨越州界的概率大约是他们死亡概率的10倍。这一明显的差异意味着，在这两种情况下，当代人和后代人之间的冲突具有非常不同的含义，这意味着州和联邦一级的不同财政机构可能是必要的。最近联邦赤字的复苏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，以及美国宪法平衡预算修正案的适当性。类似的争论在欧盟已经非常激烈，欧洲稳定公约（European Stability Pact）（至少在原则上）对赤字支出施加了严格的限制，而没有区分不同的类别。本项目中提出的分析将非常有价值，有助于就此类财政机构的设计作出知情的决定。

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.