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Government spending has increased dramatically in the United States since World War II despite the many rules intended to rein in the insatiable appetite for tax revenue most politicians seem to share. Drawing on examples from the federal and state governments, Rules and Restraint explains in lucid, nontechnical prose why these budget rules tend to fail, and proposes original alternatives for imposing much-needed fiscal discipline on our legislators. One reason budget rules are ineffective, David Primo shows, is that politicians often create and preserve loopholes to protect programs that bene.

Tools of direct democracy, such as the citizen initiative, are available at both the state and local levels in the United States, yet models of the process typically do not consider these institutions in tandem. In this article, I develop a model of local fiscal policy that incorporates the impact of a statewide as well as a local initiative process. I posit that the statewide initiative process leads to lower levels of state spending, additional spending mandates on the local level, and reduced deadweight costs of taxation, with these three factors leading to an increase in local spending. I then show that the ability of interest groups to secure particularistic spending through the local initiative has a similarly pro-spending impact. Subsequently, I explore data from the year 2000 in over 600 cities with a population greater than 25,000 and find that the spending-enhancing effects of the local initiative are strong when signature requirements are low, leading to a 12--14 percent increase in spending compared to local governments without such an initiative process in place. [Reprinted by permission of Sage Publications Ltd., copyright holder.]

Tools of direct democracy, such as the citizen initiative, are available at both the state and local levels in the United States, yet models of the process typically do not consider these institutions in tandem. In this article, I develop a model of local fiscal policy that incorporates the impact of a statewide as well as a local initiative process. I posit that the statewide initiative process leads to lower levels of state spending, additional spending mandates on the local level, and reduced deadweight costs of taxation, with these three factors leading to an increase in local spending. I then show that the ability of interest groups to secure particularistic spending through the local initiative has a similarly pro-spending impact. Subsequently, I explore data from the year 2000 in over 600 cities with a population greater than 25,000 and find that the spending-enhancing effects of the local initiative are strong when signature requirements are low, leading to a 12—14 percent increase in spending compared to local governments without such an initiative process in place.

I present a more general characterization of the symmetric stationary subgame perfect equilibrium to the Baron and Ferejohn (1989) open rule divide-the-dollar game. Specifically, I show that an amender can follow several different randomization strategies when deciding whom to make offers to, and each can be sustained as a distinct equilibrium with slightly different payoffs. The result demonstrates that, when building coalitions in bargaining settings where an offer is already on the table, those with the worst offers need not be the ones "bought up" first. Adapted from the source document.

A distributive politics model establishes that the presence of exogenously enforceable spending limits reduces spending and that the effect of executive veto authority is contingent on whether spending is capped and whether the chief executive is a liberal or conservative. Surprisingly, when spending limits are in place, governments with conservative executives spend more than those with more liberal chief executives. Limits are welfare improving, as is the executive veto when it leads to the building of override coalitions. Using 32 years of US state budget data, this paper also establishes empirically that strict balanced budget rules constrain spending and also lead to less pronounced short‐term responses to fluctuations in a state's economy. Party variables like divided government and party control of state legislatures tend to have little or no direct effect, with political institutions and economic indicators explaining much of the variation in state spending.

In a recent article, Gabel & Hager argue that the line-item veto & the balanced budget amendment promote (BBA) & may increase pork-barrel spending. In their discussion of the balanced budget amendment, Gabel & Hager present one example to support their claim. I demonstrate that the effect of a BBA in their model is highly contingent on parameter values, & that their results hold only for a specific set of parameter values. Further, in a generalized model where the balanced budget amendment is crafted endogenously, the BBA that is enacted has the effect of either decreasing spending or keeping it constant. 2 Tables, 7 References. Adapted from the source document.

The popular view that campaign finance reform is considered a top priority of the American public is scrutinized. It is argued that although Americans do favor some type of reform, they have assigned it a low priority. The public's perceived preoccupation with the subject, it is claimed, is due primarily to its popularity among the mass media. Public opinion data from 2002 shows that only 1% of the population considered campaign finance reform one of the most important issues of that year; this was just after the Enron bankruptcy scandal that both the media & elected officials had linked to campaign finance. It is also argued that Americans' trust in government is not linked to campaign spending. Data shows that the huge decline in public trust in government that began in the 1960s actually preceded a big jump in campaign spending. It is therefore concluded that the increase in spending could not have caused the drop in trust, which was more likely caused by the Watergate affair, the war in Vietnam, & other public scandals. 1 Figure, 16 References. J. Paul

"Many believe that stricter campaign finance reform laws will improve the public's perception of the integrity of the election process and lessen their cynicism about politics. But will campaign finance reform change the public's attitudes towards our politics? The authors use a series of public opinion surveys and experiments to explore the extent to which reform of the campaign finance laws will accomplish reformers' goals at least in terms of changing public perception of politics. Contrary to the views of many experts, Primo and Milyo show that campaign finance reform, at least at the level typically enacted by Congress or state legislatures, and permitted by the Supreme Court, does little to increase the public's trust in government or lessen their cynicism about politics."