The 1974 Budget Act's Impact on U.S. Spending and Debt: A Synthetic Control Study

32 Pages Posted: 19 Jun 2018

See all articles by Massimiliano Ferraresi

Massimiliano Ferraresi

University of Ferrara

Gianluca Gucciardi

University of Ferrara

Leonzio Rizzo

University of Ferrara - Faculty of Economics

Date Written: May 29, 2018

Abstract

The 1974 Budget Act marked a turning point in U.S. budgeting history. With the Act, Congress decisively asserted its fiscal power, becoming more independent from the President in developing the budget and appropriating funds. Lawmakers at the time believed that the status quo, wherein Congress approved the budget in a piecemeal fashion, improperly limited their authority.

While rising deficits and debts put pressure on Washington to restrain them, the President’s most direct method for cutting spending – impoundment – caused the conflict between Congress and the President that boiled over and led to the Budget Act.

In this paper, we set out to discover how this compromise, the 1974 Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (or 1974 Budget Act), ultimately impacted spending and debt. More specifically we use a synthetic control model to test the alternative – what would have happened without the Act?

In short, we find that after 1974, public debt-to-GDP and public expenditures-to-GDP both increased, but less than what they would have without it. Section 2 outlines the Institutional framework, Section 3 describes the empirical methodology, Section 4 discusses the data sample and the empirical strategy Section 5 describes the results, Section 6 discusses broad implications for modern reformers, and the Appendix shows the placebo tests which give robustness to synthetic control analysis.

Keywords: 1974 Budget Act, President, Deficit, Public Spending, Governor, Congress, Debt, Synthetic Control

JEL Classification: H71, H72, C23

Suggested Citation

Ferraresi, Massimiliano and Gucciardi, Gianluca and Rizzo, Leonzio, The 1974 Budget Act's Impact on U.S. Spending and Debt: A Synthetic Control Study (May 29, 2018). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3195283 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3195283

Massimiliano Ferraresi

University of Ferrara ( email )

Via del Gregorio 13
Ferrara, 44100
Italy

Gianluca Gucciardi

University of Ferrara ( email )

Via del Gregorio 13
Ferrara, 44100
Italy

Leonzio Rizzo (Contact Author)

University of Ferrara - Faculty of Economics ( email )

C.so Ercole I° d'Este 37
Ferrara, 44100
Italy

Do you have negative results from your research you’d like to share?

Paper statistics

Downloads
75
Abstract Views
669
Rank
571,914
PlumX Metrics