Do governmental institutions constrain state actors? I investigate this question by examining the relationship between the design of state legislative fiscal offices and the health of state budgets. These budgetary bodies serve a supporting role for legislatures, designed to advance sound fiscal policy and sustainable public finance. With an original data set encompassing all state legislative budgetary bodies from 1963-2014, I estimate the causal effects of nonpartisan fiscal offices on budget surpluses with a generalized difference-in-differences estimator. My results show that the presence of these fiscal offices within legislatures do not affect a state’s fiscal well-being. This result holds even when legislative fiscal offices are relatively empowered in the budget process, raising doubts about how state lawmakers use nonpartisan budgetary information in funding the government.

中文翻译：

---

机构重要吗？预算专业知识对国家财政责任的影响

政府机构是否限制国家行为者？我通过研究州立法财政办公室的设计与州预算的健康之间的关系来调查这个问题。这些预算机构为立法机构提供支持，旨在推进健全的财政政策和可持续的公共财政。使用包含 1963 年至 2014 年所有州立法预算机构的原始数据集，我使用广义差异估计量估计了无党派财政部门对预算盈余的因果影响。我的研究结果表明，这些财政办公室在立法机构中的存在不会影响一个州的财政状况。即使立法财政部门在预算过程中获得相对授权，这一结果仍然成立，