Do Balanced Budget Laws Matter in Recessions?

Haizhen Mou, Michael M. Atkinson and Stephen Tapp

Public Budgeting & Finance, 2018, vol. 38, issue 1, 28-46

Abstract: Since the mid†1990s, most Canadian provinces have enacted balanced budget laws (BBLs). Critics argue that these laws are empty political gestures that are ignored during economic slowdowns. We consider BBLs in the Canadian provinces from 1981 to 2013 and find that provinces with stronger rules had better deficit and debt records overall. Recessions make it more difficult to achieve positive outcomes, but we find no obvious difference between the effects of BBLs during normal economic conditions and “bad times.†We conclude with suggestions for how the design of BBLs could take better account of jurisdiction†specific business cycles.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/pbaf.12163

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:pbudge:v:38:y:2018:i:1:p:28-46

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0275-1100

Access Statistics for this article

Public Budgeting & Finance is currently edited by Philip Joyce and William Simonsen

More articles in Public Budgeting & Finance from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().