The Case for Restricting Fiscal Policy Discretion
基于91国数据，发现自由裁量的财政政策会加剧产出波动，每增加一个百分点波动会降低经济增长超0.8个百分点，而政治约束等制度因素能解释审慎的财政行为，支持通过制度限制来减少波动、促进增长。
This paper studies the effects of discretionary fiscal policy on output volatility and economic growth. Using data for 91 countries, we isolate three empirical regularities: (1) governments that use fiscal policy aggressively induce significant macroeconomic instability; (2) the volatility of output caused by discretionary fiscal policy lowers economic growth by more than 0.8 percentage points for every percentage point increase in volatility; (3) prudent use of fiscal policy is explained to a large extent by the presence of political constraints and other political and institutional variables. The evidence in the paper supports arguments for constraining discretion by imposing institutional restrictions on governments as a way to reduce output volatility and increase the rate of economic growth.