IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/pubfin/v53y2025i1p29-61.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can the Federal Budget Process Promote Fiscal Sustainability? Evidence from the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990

Author

Listed:
  • Denvil R. Duncan
  • Justin M. Ross
  • John L. Mikesell

Abstract

The Budgetary Enforcement Act of 1990 (BEA90), in effect from 1992 to 2002, is frequently held up as an example of a congressional control that constrained U.S. federal spending. This paper provides a formal test of this conventional wisdom using synthetic control on federal non-defense discretionary expenditures, which is the category of spending BEA90 was considered the most binding. A BEA90-retaining Synthetic United States generated from a lasso regression on a large panel of donors high-income national economic and government finance indicators ultimately reach 2006 at about the same level as the actual United States despite temporarily showing some more restraint immediately upon expiration. We conclude that BEA90 effect on federal non-defense discretionary spending was small, short-lived, statistically likely to have emerged from chance, and more generally did not bend the curve of federal expenditure growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Denvil R. Duncan & Justin M. Ross & John L. Mikesell, 2025. "Can the Federal Budget Process Promote Fiscal Sustainability? Evidence from the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990," Public Finance Review, , vol. 53(1), pages 29-61, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:sae:pubfin:v:53:y:2025:i:1:p:29-61
    DOI: 10.1177/10911421241273374
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10911421241273374
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/10911421241273374?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. Calcagno, Peter T. & López, Edward J., 2017. "Informal norms trump formal constraints: the evolution of fiscal policy institutions in the United States," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(1), pages 211-242, March.
    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. Alberto Batinti & Luca Andriani & Andrea Filippetti, 2019. "Local Government Fiscal Policy, Social Capital and Electoral Payoff: Evidence across Italian Municipalities," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(4), pages 503-526, November.
    2. Ringa Raudla & James W. Douglas & Muiris MacCarthaigh, 2022. "Medium‐term expenditure frameworks: Credible instrument or mirage?," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 71-92, September.
    3. Peter Calcagno & Joshua C. Hall, 2020. "Formal and informal constraints on state government and economic freedom," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(1), pages 801-806.
    4. Marvin Phaup, 2022. "Federal budget process reform: An economics perspective, with imperfect, “Human” decision‐makers," Public Budgeting & Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 114-130, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Federal budget; budget process;

    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:pubfin:v:53:y:2025:i:1:p:29-61. 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: .

    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.