Voting on the Budget Deficit: Comment
评论认为，平衡预算规则可能导致公共投资不足，从而在事前并非有效；要达成事前最优结果，需额外制定投资规则，但实践中难以实施，因此平衡预算规则的利弊并不明确。
In this comment, it is argued that a balanced-budget rule may cause underinvestment. As a consequence, such a rule is not ex ante efficient: in order to achieve the ex ante optimal outcome, it would be necessary to add an extra rule for the level of public investment. Unfortunately, however, such an investment rule is likely to be very difficult to implement in practice. When there are no rules to prevent underinvestment, it is no longer clear whether a balanced-budget rule is beneficial or not. In some cases, the cost of low levels of investment outweigh the benefits of a balanced budget.