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Measuring US Presidents’ Political Commitment for Fiscal Discipline Between 1920 and 2008

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Do They Walk Like They Talk?

Part of the book series: Studies in Public Choice ((SIPC,volume 15))

Abstract

We propose a theoretical method to catch politicians' fiscal attitude concerning deficits and debt based on the analysis of the political discourse. We describe the methodological steps used to obtain it.

The methodology is applied to the case of US President during the period 1920–2008. The results can be exploited in order to better understand the formation and the evolution of fiscal preferences and their influence on fiscal performance. As the index is based on normative and positive attitudes about deficits, their analysis can show the presence of strategic political behavior, giving thus a way to test some theoretical models on budgetary political behavior.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We are using in this paper the notion of “fiscal conservatism” in a pure positive meaning. We do not enter into normative analysis concerning the pertinence of this fiscal policy choice compared to any competing policy option.

  2. 2.

    “Because policy and ideas are intertwined, in discussing the main macroeconomic currents we refer also to economic events of the time. We show how theories influence policies and how the results of policies influence views about theory.

    Any student should wonder about a field in which opinions and policy prescriptions change so often. And you should worry, too, about the differences in views among macroeconomists at any given time. For instance, what should you conclude about budget deficits when one group of economists claims deficits have no real effects and another group blames deficits for high real interest rates ad the large trade deficit?” (Dornbusch and Fisher 1990, p. 674).

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Acknowledgments

Data used in this chapter were collected during my stay as Visiting Researcher at The Institute for Quantitative Social Science, Harvard University. My sincere acknowledgment to its director, Jim Alt. I am also grateful to Jim Poterba, John Ferejohn, Richard Wagner, Ricardo Haussmann, Allan Drazen and Robert Y. Shapiro for their invaluable comments on the preliminary versions of this paper. A previous version of this paper was presented at the European Public Choice Society Congress, Aarhus, March 2003.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Economía, Universidad de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

    Francesc Pujol

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  1. Francesc Pujol
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Correspondence to Francesc Pujol .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dépt. Science Politique, Université Laval, Pavillon Charles-DeKoninck, Québec, G1K 7P4, Canada

    Louis M. Imbeau

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Pujol, F. (2009). Measuring US Presidents’ Political Commitment for Fiscal Discipline Between 1920 and 2008. In: Imbeau, L. (eds) Do They Walk Like They Talk?. Studies in Public Choice, vol 15. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-89672-4_6

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