Myopic or constrained by balanced-budget-rules? The intertemporal spending behavior of Norwegian local governments

The paper analyzes the intertemporal spending behavior of Norwegian local governments with particular attention to liquidity constraints imposed by balanced-budget-rules (BBRs). The main findings are: (i) On average, local government spending behavior is neither perfectly forward looking nor fully myopic. (ii) Local governments with good fiscal conditions behave more forward looking than other local governments. (iii) A high degree of party fragmentations is associated with less forward looking behavior. The overall assessment is that the departure from rational forward looking behavior reflects both liquidity constraints imposed by BBRs and myopic behavior.