How do fiscal rules shape governments' spending behavior?
利用熵平衡法估计财政规则对政府支出的因果效应，发现财政规则显著降低总支出和公共消费，但不影响公共投资，并提高公共投资与消费之比。
Abstract At odds with the large literature devoted to the fiscal discipline effects of fiscal rules, only few contributions investigate their impact on public spending. Estimations based on the entropy balancing method reveal the following causal effects: fiscal rules significantly reduce total public spending and public consumption, leave public investment mostly unaffected, and increase the public investment‐to‐public consumption ratio. Moreover, the type of fiscal rule and countries' level of economic development influence the way fiscal rules affect public spending. Lastly, fiscal rules' features are a major driving force of the way governments change public spending in the presence of fiscal rules.