TY - JOUR AU - Alesina,Alberto AU - Perotti,Roberto TI - Budget Deficits and Budget Institutions JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 5556 PY - 1996 Y2 - May 1996 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5556 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w5556.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Alberto F. Alesina Department of Economics Harvard University Littauer Center 210 Cambridge, MA 02138 Tel: 617/495-8388 Fax: 617/495-7730 E-Mail: aalesina@harvard.edu Roberto Perotti IGIER Universita' Bocconi Via Roentgen 1 20136 Milano ITALY Tel: 39 02 58363073 Fax: 39 02 58363302 E-Mail: roberto.perotti@unibocconi.it M1 - published as Alberto F. Alesina, Roberto Perotti. "Budget Deficits and Budget Institutions," in James M. Poterba and Jürgen von Hagen, editors, "Fiscal Institutions and Fiscal Performance" University of Chicago Press (1999) M2 - featured in NBER digest on 1996-09-01 AB - By discussing the available theoretical and empirical literature, this paper argues that budget procedures and budget institutions do influence budget outcomes. Budget institutions include both procedural rules and balanced budget laws. We critically assess theoretical contributions in this area and suggest several open and unresolved issues. We also examine the empirical evidence drawn from studies on samples of OECD countries, Latin American countries and US states. ER -