IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/amerec/v40y1996i2p77-85.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the U.S. Budget Deficit Dilemma: Has Television Contributed?

Author

Listed:
  • Ali F. Darrat
  • Bill P. Bowers

Abstract

We advance several theoretical reasons for arguing that expansion in television viewership may have contributed to the recent escalation in the U.S. budget deficit. We then develop a multivariate model to test the validity of the hypothesis using alternative measures of television viewership. The empirical results could not reject our contention that the fast evolution of the U.S. television viewership since the early 1970s has significantly contributed to the escalating size of the federal budget deficit over and above the effects of several other possible macro determinants. This evidence provides some support to the claim that there exists a “liberal†bias within the media (particularly television) that undermines fiscal conservatism. Therefore, it appears advisable for policy-makers to take into account the role of television if they aspire to understand and ultimately control the mounting federal budget deficit.

Suggested Citation

  • Ali F. Darrat & Bill P. Bowers, 1996. "On the U.S. Budget Deficit Dilemma: Has Television Contributed?," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 40(2), pages 77-85, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:40:y:1996:i:2:p:77-85
    DOI: 10.1177/056943459604000210
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/056943459604000210
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/056943459604000210?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hoelscher, Gregory, 1986. "New Evidence on Deficits and Interest Rates," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 18(1), pages 1-17, February.
    2. Mishkin, Frederic S, 1982. "Does Anticipated Aggregate Demand Policy Matter? Further Econometric Results," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(4), pages 788-802, September.
    3. Zellner, Arnold, 1979. "Causality and econometrics," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 9-54, January.
    4. Evans, Paul, 1987. "Interest Rates and Expected Future Budget Deficits in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 95(1), pages 34-58, February.
    5. Caines, P. E. & Keng, C. W. & Sethi, S. P., 1981. "Causality analysis and multivariate Autoregressive modelling with an application to supermarket sales analysis," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 267-298, November.
    6. Ahking, Francis W. & Miller, Stephen M., 1985. "The relationship between government deficits, money growthm and inflation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 447-467.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ali F. Darrat & Tarun K. Mukherjee, 1995. "Inter‐industry differences and the impact of operating and financial leverages on equity risk," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 4(2), pages 141-155, March.
    2. Darrat, Ali F. & Mukherjee, Tarun K., 1995. "Inter-industry differences and the impact of operating and financial leverages on equity risk," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 141-155.
    3. Darrat, Ali F & Glascock, John L, 1993. "On the Real Estate Market Efficiency," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 7(1), pages 55-72, July.
    4. Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Gregory Mankiw, N., 1999. "Government debt," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 25, pages 1615-1669, Elsevier.
    5. Bordo, Michael D., 1986. "Explorations in monetary history: A survey of the literature," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 339-415, October.
    6. Kitchen, John & Orden, David, 1991. "Effects of Fiscal Policy on Agriculture and the Rural Economy," Staff Reports 278556, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    7. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Sinai, Allen, 2006. "Deficits, expected deficits, financial markets, and the economy," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 79-101, March.
    9. Robert Haveman, 1994. "Should Generational Accounts Replace Public Budgets and Deficits?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 95-111, Winter.
    10. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Bruno Ducoudré, 2005. "Fiscal policy and interest rates," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2005-08, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    12. Ali F. Darrat & Karin P. LaBarge & Richard A. LaBarge, 1989. "Is Financial Deepening a Reliable Prescription for Economic Growth?," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 33(2), pages 25-33, October.
    13. Cebula, Richard & Koch, James, 1988. "An Empirical Note on Deficits, Interest Rates, and International Capital Flows," MPRA Paper 50165, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Richard J. Cebula, 1998. "An empirical analysis of the impact of federal budget deficits on long‐term nominal interest rate yields, 1973.2–1995.4, using alternative expected inflation measures," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(1), pages 55-64.
    15. Tito B.S. Moreira & Geraldo Silva Souza, 2009. "A Nominal Theory of the Nominal Rate of Interest and the Price Level: Some Empirical Evidence," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(4), pages 3120-3125.
    16. Belton, Willie & Cebula, Richard, 1994. "International Capital Flows, Federal Budget Deficits, and Interest Rates, 1971-1984," MPRA Paper 52345, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Damla Hacýibrahimoðlu & Pýnar Derin-Güre, 2015. "Generational Accounting in Turkey," Bogazici Journal, Review of Social, Economic and Administrative Studies, Bogazici University, Department of Economics, vol. 29(1), pages 1-26.
    18. Richard J. Cebula, 2002. "A contemporary investigation of causality between the primary government budget deficit and the ex ante real long term interest rate in the US," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 55(223), pages 417-435.
    19. Laopodis, Nikiforos T., 2009. "Fiscal policy and stock market efficiency: Evidence for the United States," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 633-650, May.
    20. M. A. Akhtar, 1995. "Monetary Policy And Long‐Term Interest Rates: A Survey Of Empirical Literature," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 13(3), pages 110-130, July.
    21. Michael A. Conte & Ali F. Darrat, 1993. "Testing Alternative Views Of Government Budgeting," Review of Financial Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 3(1), pages 19-40, September.
    22. Otto Gandenberger, 2000. "Is the Fiscal Deficit Misconceived? Proponents of Generational Accounting Overstate their Case," CESifo Working Paper Series 282, CESifo.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:amerec:v:40:y:1996:i:2:p:77-85. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://journals.sagepub.com/home/aex .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.