ABSTRACT

Local governments forecast revenues and expenditures as part of their budget process. Despite growing evidence of biased revenue forecasts, there is limited research on expenditure forecast bias. To contribute the literature, this article uses theory on the forecast information set that considers factors associated with biased expenditure forecasts. Two-way fixed effects regression models are estimated with a panel of all Kentucky school districts from 2001 to 2014. 82.1% of districts overestimated expenditures. Model estimates show that revenue forecasts and fiscal reserves are associated with expenditure forecast bias, indicating that forecasters consider financial factors in their information set.

摘要

地方政府预测收入和支出是其预算过程的一部分。尽管越来越多的证据表明收入预测有偏差，但对支出预测偏差的研究有限。为了贡献文献，本文使用了预测信息集的理论，该理论考虑了与有偏差的支出预测相关的因素。从 2001 年到 2014 年，使用一组肯塔基州所有学区的面板估计了双向固定效应回归模型。82.1% 的学区高估了支出。模型估计表明，收入预测和财政储备与支出预测偏差相关，表明预测者在其信息集中考虑了财务因素。