Public Sector Governance and Accountability Series: Budgeting and ...

Budgeting Institutions for Better Fiscal Performance 49
make this awareness a durable one and thus serve as a commitment device for
good fiscal performance.
Notes
1. For a review of this literature as it relates to fiscal policy, see von Hagen (2006b).
2. Alt and Dreyer-Lassen (2006) operationalize their approach and calculate indexes
of transparency that facilitate international comparisons.
3. For a discussion of balanced-budget constraints in the United States and other
countries and their effects on fiscal performance, see Canova and Pappa (2005),
Fatás and Mihov (2003), Kennedy and Robbins (2001), Kopits (2001), and von
Hagen (1991).
4. See Dore and Masson (2002), Emmerson, Frayne, and Love (2002), and Kennedy
and Robbins (2001). Daban and others (2001) provide a description of fiscal rules
in a variety of countries.
5. For example, Mills and Quinet (2002) report estimates from the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development of the output gap in France for 1995. The 1995
estimate was below 3.0 percent, whereas the 1999 estimate was 0.5 percent.
6. For a review of the literature, see von Hagen (2006b).
7. Note that in the current context, centralization refers to the internal organization,
not the geographic structure of budgetary decisions.
8. See von Hagen (2006b) for a review of this literature.
References
Alesina, Alberto, Reza Baqir, and William Easterly. 1997. “Public Goods and Ethnic
Divisions.” NBER Working Paper 6009, National Bureau for Economic Research,
Cambridge, MA.
Alesina, Alberto, and Roberto Perotti. 1996. “Fiscal Discipline and the Budget Process.”
American Economic Review 86 (2): 401–7.
Alt, James E., and David Dreyer-Lassen. 2006.“Fiscal Transparency, Political Parties, and
Debt in OECD Countries.” European Economic Review 50 (6): 1403–39.
Annett, Anthony. 2000. “Social Fractionalization, Political Instability, and the Size
of Government.” IMF Working Paper 00/82, International Monetary Fund,
Washington, DC.
Canova, Fabio, and Evi Pappa. 2005. “Does It Cost to Be Virtuous? The Macroeconomic
Effects of Fiscal Constraints.” NBER Working Paper 11065, National Bureau for
Economic Research, Cambridge, MA.
Crain, W. Mark, and James C. Miller. 1990. “Budget Process and Spending Growth.”
William and Mary Law Review 31 (4): 1021–46.
Daban, Teresa, Enrica Detragiache, Gabriel di Belli, Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, and
Steven Symansky. 2001.“Rules-Based Fiscal Policy and the Fiscal Framework in France,
Germany, Italy, and Spain.” IMF Occasional Paper 225, International Monetary Fund,
Washington, DC.
Dore, Ousmane, and Paul R. Masson. 2002.“Experience with Budgetary Convergence in the
WAEMU.”IMF Working Paper 02/108,International Monetary Fund,Washington,DC.