The Dynamics of the Revenue–Expenditure Nexus

Using data from the contiguous US states from 1951 to 2008, this study examines the dynamics of the intertemporal budget constraint to better understand persistent budget deficits. The direction of causality between tax revenues and expenditures is of primary interest in answering the four hypotheses set forth in the literature: tax-spend, spend-tax, fiscal synchronization, and institutional separation. Overall, the results convey evidence in...