Sticky Spending, Sequestration, and Government Debt

Facundo Piguillem and Alessandro Riboni

No 16294, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: Once established, government spending programs tend to continue. Spending inertia can lead to unsustainable debt levels that require fiscal stabilization, such as “sequestration.†We develop a political economy model of debt with sticky spending by assuming that the government must maintain a fraction of past spending. We show that inertia insures against the risk of political turnover, which may reduce politicians’ incentives to accumulate debt. However, if preexisting commitments are large, as in the current U.S. context, inertia exacerbates incentives to increase debt; faced with the prospect of stabilization, the government overspends to “dilute†the spending commitments of past administrations.

Keywords: Government debt; Mandatory and discretionary spending; Entitlement spending reform; Delayed stabilization; Budgetary inertia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H2 H6 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-06
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Journal Article: Sticky Spending, Sequestration, and Government Debt (2024)
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