Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-r5fsc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T03:44:30.212Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Soft Budget Constraint: A Theoretical Clarification

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

Mehrdad Vahabi*
Affiliation:
EPEH-LED, UniversitéParis 8
Get access

Summary

In this paper, we have distinguished three different conceptions of the budget constraint (BC). The first one, introduced by Clower, regards the BC as a universal (unconditional) rational planning postulate. This does not imply market equilibrium or optimality. The second one, advocated by Kornai, considers the BC as a conditional empirical fact regarding the specific behavioural regularity of agents that is determined by particular institutional setups. The third one is implicitly held by a number of endogenous explanations of the SBC notably by the Complete (optimal) Contracts Theory and the Public Choice Theory. It regards the BC as a matter of choice by rational agents. While Clower and Kornai try to understand the BC in the context of disequilibrium or at least independently of equilibrium or optimality conditions, the partisans of the third approach integrate the BC in the process of dynamic optimization. Although Kornai’s conception of the BC is irreconcilable with the third approach, it should be noted that Kornai’s standpoint is contradictory. In his appraisal of the hard budget constraint (HBC) in case of competitive market economy, Kornai contends that the application of the BC is equivalent to the realization of Walras’ Law. He then uses this ideal HBC as a normative reference in order to measure the inefficiencies of the soft budget constraint (SBC). In fact, Kornai’s standpoint with regard to the HBC and his efficiency analysis are in tune with the third approach.

Résumé

Résumé

Dans ce papier, nous distinguons trois conceptions différentes de la contrainte budgétaire (CB). La première conception, formulée par Clower, considère la CB comme un postulat universel (non conditionnel) de planification rationnel par les agents. Ceci n’implique ni l’équilibre, ni l’optimalité. La seconde conception, soutenue par Kornai, interprète la CB comme un fait empirique conditionnel portant sur la spécificité de la régularité comportementale des agents, qui est déterminée par les matrices institutionnelles spécifiques. La troisième conception est sous jacente dans les explications endogènes de la contrainte budgétaire lâche (CBL) développée notamment par la théorie des Contrats Complets et la théorie du Choix Public. Celles- ci traitent de la CB comme une question de choix par les agents rationnels et optimisateurs. Tandis que Clower et Kornai essaient de comprendre la CB dans le cadre du déséquilibre ou au moins indépendamment des conditions de l’équilibre et de l’optimalité, les partisans de la troisième approche intègre la CB dans le processus de l’optimisation dynamique. Nonobstant les différences fondamentales de la conception de Kornai avec la troisième approche, sa vision est contradictoire. Dans son traitement de la contrainte budgétaire dure (CBD) dans une économie de marché concurrentielle, Kornai soutient que l’application de la CB implique la réalisation de la loi de Walras. Puis, il utilise cette CBD comme un cadre de référence normatif afin de mesurer les inefficacités de la CBL. En fait, la position de Kornai concernant la CBD et son analyse en terme d’efficacité sont en résonance avec la troisième approche.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 2001 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

EPEH-LED, Université Paris 8, Saint-Denis, 2 rue de la Liberté, 93200 Saint-Denis, France. Comments from Bernard Chavance, Robert Clower, Christophe Defeuilley, Janos Kornai and two anonymous referees are gratefully acknowledged. All remaining errors are the author’s. The author would like to thank Mandana Vahabi without whose usual assistance this paper could not be prepared in the present form.

References

Aghion, P., Dewatripont, M., and Rey, P. (1994), “Renegotiation Design with Unverifiable Information”, Econometrica, vol. LXII, pp. 257–82.Google Scholar
Aizenman, J. (1993), “Soft Budget Constraints, Taxes, and the Incentive to Cooperate”, International Economic Review, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 819–32.Google Scholar
Ambrus-Lakatos, L. and Csaba, I. (1990), “The Effects of Profit Redistribution on the Level of Input Use: A Model of the Socialist Firm”, Yearbook of East-European Economics, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 7596.Google Scholar
Anderson, L. (1995), “Peace and Democracy in the Middle East: The Constraints of Soft Budgets”, Journal of International Affairs, vol. 49, no. 1, pp. 2544.Google Scholar
Aoki, M. (1995), “Controlling Insider Control: Issues of Corporate Governance in Transition Economies”, in Aoki, M. and Kim, H.K. (eds.), Corporate Governance in Transitional Economies: Insider Control and the Role of Banks, The World Bank, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. J. and Debreu, G. (1954), “Existence of an Equilibrium for a Competitive Economy”, Econometrica, vol. 22, pp. 265290.Google Scholar
Arrow, K. J. and Hahn, F.H. (1971), General Competitive Analysis, San Francisco, Holden-Day.Google Scholar
Bai, C. and Wang, Y. (1995), A Theory of the Soft Budget Constraint, Boston College Working Papers in Economics, Dept, of Economics, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA 02167.Google Scholar
Bai, C. and Wang, Y. (1998), “Bureaucratic Control and the Soft Budget Constraint”, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 26, pp. 4161.Google Scholar
Bajt, A. (1991), “Irrelevance of the Soft Budget Constraint for the Shortage Phenomenon”, Economics of Planning, vol. 24, no. 1, pp. 112.Google Scholar
Bardhan, P.K. (1993), “On Tackling the Soft Budget Constraint in Market Socialism”, in Bardhan, P.K. and Romer, J.E. (eds.), Market Socialism: The Current Debate, Oxford, New York, Toronto and Melbourne, Oxford University Press, pp. 145–55.Google Scholar
Baumol, W.J. (1977), “Say’s (at Least) Eight Laws, or What Say and James Mill May Really Have Meant?Economica, vol. 44, pp. 6580.Google Scholar
Baumol, W.J. (1982), Contestable Markets and the Theory of Industry Structure, New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Google Scholar
Becker, G. (1983), “A Theory of Competition Among Pressure Groups for Political Influence”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 98, pp. 371400.Google Scholar
Begg, D. and Portes, R. (1993), “Enterprise debt and economic transformation: financial restructuring in Central and Eastern Europe”, in Mayer, C. and Vives, X. (eds.), Capital Markets and Financial Intermediaries, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 230–61.Google Scholar
Berglof, E. and Roland, G. (1997), “Soft budget constraints and credit crunches in financial transition”, European Economic Review, vol. 41, pp. 807817.Google Scholar
Berglof, E. and Roland, G. (1998), “Soft budget constraints and banking in transition economies”, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 26, pp. 1840.Google Scholar
Bös, D. and Lülfesmann, C. (1996), “The Hold-Up Problem in Government Contracting”, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, vol. 98, no. 1, pp. 5374.Google Scholar
Boycko, M., Shleifer, A. and Vishny, R. (1996), “A Theory of Privatisation”, The Economic Journal, vol. 106, no. 435, pp. 309319.Google Scholar
Cheung, T. Y. (1991), “Incomplete Contracts, Specific Investments, and Risk Sharing”, Review of Economic Studies, vol. 58, no. 5, pp. 1031–42.Google Scholar
Clower, R. (1965), “The Keynesian Counterrevolution: A Theoretical Appraisal”, in Hahn, F. H. and Brechling, P.P.R. (eds.), The Theory of Interest Rates, London, Macmillan, Chapter 5.Google Scholar
Clower, R. and Due, J. F. (1972), Microeconomics, Homewood, Illinois, Richard D. Erwin, Sixth edition.Google Scholar
Clower, R. and Leijonhufvud, A. (1975), “The Coordination of Economic Activities: A Keynesian Perspective”, The American Economic Review, vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 182–88.Google Scholar
Clower, R. and Leijonhufvud, A. (1981), “Say’s Principle, What It Means and Doesn’t Mean”, in Leijonhufvud, A. (ed.), Information and Coordination, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clower, R. (1994), “Economics as an Inductive Science”, Southern Economic Journal, vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 805814.Google Scholar
Clower, R. (1995), “Axiomatics in Economics”, Southern Economic Journal, vol. 62, no. 2, pp. 307319.Google Scholar
Costa, M.L. (1998), General Equilibrium Analysis and the Theory of Markets, Cheltenham, UK, Northampton, MA, USA, Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Daver, F. and Panunzi, F. (1997), “Decentralization, Mobility Costs and the Soft Budget Constraint”, in Battigali, P., Montesano, A., and Panunzi, F. (eds.), Decisions, Games and markets, Boston, Dordrecht, London, Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp. 209–38.Google Scholar
Debreu, G. (1959), Theory of Value: An Axiomatic Analysis of Economic Equilibrium, New York, John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Dewatripont, M. and Maskin, E. (1995), “Credit and Efficiency in Centralized and Decentralized Economics”, Review of Economic Studies, vol. 62, no. 4, pp. 541555.Google Scholar
Dewatripont, M. and Tirole, J. (1996), “Biased Principals as a Discipline Device”, Japan and the World Economy, vol. 8, pp. 195206.Google Scholar
Eisner, R. (1975), “The Keynesian Revolution”, The American Economic Review, vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 189–94.Google Scholar
Fischer, S. (1999), “On the Need for an International Lender of Last Resort”, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 85105.Google Scholar
Goldfeld, S. and Quandt, R. (1988), “Budget Constraints, Bailouts, and the Firm under Central Planning”, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 12, pp. 502520.Google Scholar
Goldfeld, S. and Quandt, R. (1990), “Output Targets, the Soft Budget Constraint, and the Firm Under Central Planning”, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 14, pp. 205–22.Google Scholar
Goldfeld, S. and Quandt, R. (1992), “Effect of Bailouts, Taxes, and RiskAversion on the Enterprise”, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 16, pp. 150167.Google Scholar
Goldfeld, S. and Quandt, R. (1993), “Uncertainty, Bailouts, and the Kornai Effect”, Economic Letters, vol. 41, pp. 113119.Google Scholar
Gomulka, S. (1986), “Kornai’s Soft Budget Constraint and the Shortage Phenomena: A Criticism and Restatement”, in Gomulka, S. (ed.), Growth, Innovation and Reform in Eastern Europe, Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 7390.Google Scholar
Hardy, D. (1992), “Soft Budget Constraints, Firm Commitments, and the Social Safety Net”, IMF Staff Papers, vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 310–29.Google Scholar
Hart, O. (1990), “Is “Bounded Rationality” an Important Element of a Theory of Institutions?”, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, vol. 146, pp. 696702.Google Scholar
Hart, O. (1995), Firms, Contracts, and Financial Structure, Oxford, Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hart, O. and Moore, J. (1988), “Incomplete Contracts and Renegotiation”, Econometrica, vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 755785.Google Scholar
Hicks, J. (1939), Value and Capital, New York, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hillman, A., Katz, E., and Rosenberg, J. (1987), “Workers as Insurance: Anticipated Government Assistance and Factor Demand”, Oxford Economic Papers, vol. 39, pp. 813–20.Google Scholar
Huang, H. and Xu, C. (1998), “Soft Budget Constraint and the Optimal Choices of Research and Development Projects Financing”, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 26, pp. 6279.Google Scholar
Jaffé, W. (1954), Elements of Pure Economics, London, George Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Kaldor, N. (1982), The Scourage of Monetarism, Oxford, Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kaldor, N. (1985), Economics without Equilibrium, The Arthur Okun Memorial Lectures, M.E. Sharpe, INC., Armonk, New York.Google Scholar
Keren, M. (1993), “On the (im)possibility of market socialism”, Eastern Economic Journal, vol. 19, no. 3, pp. 333–43.Google Scholar
Knell, M. (1988), “The Economics of Shortage and the Socialist Enterprise: A Criticism of Walrasian and Non-Walrasian Approach”, Review of Radical Political Economy, vol. 20, pp. 143–48.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1971), Anti-Equilibrium, Amsterdam, North-Holland.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1979), “Resource-Constrained versus Demand-Constrained Systems”, Econometrica, vol. 47, no. 4, pp. 801819.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1980), Economics of Shortage, Amsterdam, North-Holland.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. and Weibull, J. (1983), “Paternalism, Buyers’ and Sellers’ Market”, Mathematical Social Sciences, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 153–69.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1984), “Bureaucratic and Market Coordination”, Osteuropa Wirtschaft, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 316319.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1985), “Gomulka on the Soft Budget Constraint: A Reply”, Economics of Planning, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 4955.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1986), “The Soft Budget Constraint”, Kyklos, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 330.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1992), The Socialist System. The Political Economy of Communism, Princeton, Oxford, Princeton University Press, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1997), Struggle and Hope, Essays on Stabilization and Reform in a Post-Socialist Economy, Cheltenham, UK, Edward Elgar.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1998a), “The place of the soft budget constraint in economic theory”, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 26, pp. 1117.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1998b), “Legal Obligation, Non-Compliance and Soft Budget Constraint”, Entry in Newman, Paul (ed.) New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics and the Law, New York, Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1999a), “The System Paradigm”, Collegium Budapest, Discussion Papers Series, no. 58, July 1999 (Communication submitted to the conference “Paradigms of Social Change” organized by BerlinBranderburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin, 3–5. September 1998).Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (1999b), Hardening the Budget Constraint: The Experience of Post-Socialist Economies, Invited lecture to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Economic Association, August 23-27, Mimeo, First Draft.Google Scholar
Kornai, J. (2000), Ten Years After ‘The Road to a Free Economy’: The Author’s Self-Evaluation, Paper for the World Bank ‘Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics-ABCDE”, April 1820. Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Kraft, E. (1993), “The Soft Budget Constraint and the Theory of Endogenous Money: A Note on Szego’s Critique of Kornai”, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, vol. 16, no. 1, pp. 153–61.Google Scholar
Lange, O. (1942), “The Foundations of Welfare Economics”, Econometrica, July-October.Google Scholar
Lazear, E. (1999), Economic Imperialism, Working Paper 7300, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, Mass.Google Scholar
Li, D.D. (1998), “Insider Control and the Soft Budget Constraint: A Simple Theory”, Economics Letters, vol. 61, pp. 307–11.Google Scholar
Magee, K.L. and Quandt, R.E. (1994), “The Kornai Effect with Partial Bailouts and Taxes”, Economic Planning, vol. 27, pp. 2738.Google Scholar
Maskin, E. (1996), “Theories of the Soft Budget-Constraint”, Japan and the World Economy, vol. 8, pp. 125133.Google Scholar
Maskin, E. and Tirole, J. (1999), “Unforeseen Contingencies and Incomplete Contracts”, The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 66, pp. 83114.Google Scholar
Nelson, R. and Winter, S. (1982), An Evolutionary Theory of Economic Change, The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.Google Scholar
North, D. (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
North, D. (1993), “Institutions and Credible Commitment”, Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics, vol. 149, no. 1, pp. 1123.Google Scholar
Pareto, V. (1909/1927), Manual of Political Economy, New York, Kelley, 1971.Google Scholar
Pareto, V. (1911), “Mathematical Economics”, International Economic Papers, vol. 5, 1955, pp. 58102. translated from Encyclopédie des Sciences Mathématiques, vol. I (iv, 4), Paris, Teubner, Gauthier, Villars.Google Scholar
Patinkin, D. (1956), Money, Interest and Prices; an Integration of Monetary and Value Theory, Evanston, Ill., Row, Peterson.Google Scholar
Persson, T. and Tabellini, G. (1990), Macroeconomic Policy, Credibility and Politics, Switzerland, Chur; New York, Harwood Academic Publishers.Google Scholar
Pinto, B., Derbentsov, V., and Morozov, A. (1999), Dismantling Russia’s No-Payments System: Creating Conditions for Growth, Washington D.C.: The World Bank. Excerpts published in Transition, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 15.Google Scholar
Prell, M. (1996), “The Two Kornai Effects”, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 22, pp. 267–76.Google Scholar
Pun, W.C. (1995), “The Kornai Effect and the Soft Budget Constraints”, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 21, pp. 326–35.Google Scholar
Qian, Y. and Roland, G. (1994), Regional Decentralization and the Soft Budget Constraint: The Case of China, Discussion Paper 1013, Center for Economic Policy Research.Google Scholar
Qian, Y. (1994), “Theory of Shortage in Socialist Economies”, The American Economic Review, vol. 84, no. 1, pp. 145156.Google Scholar
Qian, Y. and Roland, G. (1998), “Federalism and the Soft Budget Constraint”, The American Economic Review, vol. 88, no. 5, pp. 11431162.Google Scholar
Raiser, M. (1994), “The No-Exit Economy: Soft Budget Constraints and the Fate of Economic Reforms in Developing Countries”, World Development, vol. 22, no. 12, pp. 1851–67.Google Scholar
Samuelson, R (1948), Economics, an Introductory Analysis, first edition, N.Y, McGraw-Hill Co.Google Scholar
Schaffer, M. (1989), “The credible-commitment problem in Cenral and Eastern Europe: budgetary subsidies and tax arrears”, in Newbery, D. (ed.), Tax and Benefit Reform in Central and Eastern Europe, Center for Economic Policy Research, London, pp. 115144.Google Scholar
Schaffer, M. (1998), “Do firms in transition economies have soft budget constraint? A reconsideration of concepts and evidence”, Journal of Comparative Economics, vol. 26, pp. 80103.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. (1947), “The creative response in economic history”, The Journal of Economic History, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 149159.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. (1954), History of Economic Analysis, 3 vols, Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Scott, C. (1990), “Soft Budgets and Hard Rents: A Note on Kornai and Gomulka”, Economics of Planning, vol. 23, pp. 117–27.Google Scholar
Segal, I. (1998), “Monopoly and Soft Budget Constraint”, Rand Journal of Economics, vol. 29, no. 3, pp. 596609.Google Scholar
Shleifer, A. (1994), “Establishing Property Rights”, Proceedings of the World Bank Annual Conference on Development Economics, pp. 93117.Google Scholar
Shleifer, A. and Vishny, R. (1993), “Corruption”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 108, pp. 599618.Google Scholar
Shleifer, A. and Vishny, R. (1994), “Politicians and Firms”, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 109, pp. 9951025.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (195253), “A Comparison of Organization Theories”, The Review of Economic Studies, vol. 20, pp. 4048.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (1991), “Organizations and markets”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, vol. 5, n° 2, pp. 2544.Google Scholar
Simon, H. (1997), An Empirically Based Microeconomics, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Slutsky, E.E. (1915), “On the Theory of the Budget of Consumer”, Giomale degh Economisti, vol. 51, pp. 126.Google Scholar
Sowell, T. (1972), Say’s Law, Princeton, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, J. (1994), Whither Socialism?, Wicksell Lectures, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press.Google Scholar
Stiglitz, J. (1999), Whither Reform? Ten Years of the Transition, World Bank Annual Bank Conference on Development Economics, April 28-30, Keynote Address, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Szabó, J. (1988), “Preliminary and Incremental Softness of the Budget Constraint: A Comment on the Gomulka-Kornai Debate”, Economics of Planning, vol. 22, no. 3, pp. 109–16.Google Scholar
Szamuely, L. and Csaba, L. (1998), “Economics and Systemic Changes in Hungary, 19451996., in Wagener, H. J. (ed.), Economic Thought in Communist and Post-Communist Europe, London, Routledge, pp. 158213.Google Scholar
Szegó, A. (1991), “The Logic of a Shortage Economy: A Critique of Kornai from a Kaleckian Macroeconomic Perspective”, Journal of Post-Keynesian Economics, vol. 13, pp. 328–36.Google Scholar
Tirole, J. (1994), Incomplete Contracts: Where do we stand?, Walras-Bowley lecture, delivered at the North American Summer Meetings of the Econometric Society, Quebec City, Mimeo, IDEI, 53 pages.Google Scholar
Tobin, J. (1975), “Keynesian Models of Recession and Depression”, The American Economic Review, vol. 65, no. 2, pp. 195202.Google Scholar
Vahabi, M. (1997), “De l’économie de la pénurie à l’économie politique du communisme. Sur l’évoluion récente de la pensée économique de Janos Kornai: 1980–1996., revue d’économie politique, vol. 107, no. 6, pp. 831852.Google Scholar
Vahabi, M. (1998), “The Relevance of the Marshallian Concept of Normality in Interior and in Inertial Dynamics as Revisited by G. Shackle and J. Kornai”, The Cambridge Journal of Economics, vol. 22, no 5, pp. 547572.Google Scholar
Vahabi, M. (1999), From the Walrasian General Equilibrium to Incomplete Contracts: Making Sense of Institutions, Working Paper, Cahiers de la MSE, ROSES-CNRS, Série Jaune.Google Scholar
Walker, D.A. (1996), Walras’s market models, New York, Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Weber, M. (1968), Economy and Society; an Outline of Interpretive Sociology, New York, Bedminster Press.Google Scholar
Wildasin, D.E. (1997), Externalities and Bailouts: Hard and Soft Budget Constraints in Intergovernmental Fiscal Relations, Working Paper no. 1834, World Bank Policy Research, The World Bank, Washington D.C.Google Scholar
Williamson, O. (1985), The Economic Institutions of Capitalism. Firms, Markets, Relational Contracting, New-York, The Free Press.Google Scholar
Williamson, O. (1989), “The firm as a nexus of treaties: An Introduction”, in Aoki, M, Gustafsson, B., and Williamson, O. (eds.), The firm as a nexus of treaties, London, SCASS, Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Williamson, O. (1992), “Markets, hierarchies, and the modern corporation. An unfolding perspective”, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 17.Google Scholar
Williamson, O. (1996), The Mechanisms of Governance, Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar