In dieser Arbeit werden die Implikationen der Maastrichter Budgetkriterien für die Verschuldungsautonomie der deutschen Gebietskörperschaften untersucht. Es werden zunächst die qualitativen und quantitativen Unterschiede zwischen den europarechtlichen und den geltenden bundesdeutschen...

Kastrop and Velleuer examine the German experience with sustainability reporting. They consider its background and rationale in the context of the aging of the German population. They give an overview of the first comprehensive report on the effects of demographic change published by the Federal...

We evaluate proposals for independent fiscal authority put forward as a solution to excessive public spending. Our main conclusion is that moving the responsibility to set broad measures of fiscal policy from the hands of government to an independent fiscal council is not necessarily welfare...

The view is widespread that there are just two options for the future of the Eurozone – either it is complemented by a fiscal union, or it will fall apart. In this paper, we discuss five possible elements of a fiscal union, of which three are in the centre of the current debate on fiscal union...

Despite growing interest among policymakers, there is no theory of independent fiscal institutions. The emerging literature on "fiscal councils" typically makes informal parallels with the theory of central bank independence, but a very simple formal example shows that such a shortcut is flawed....

In this paper we collect detailed information on the budget institutions of Latin American countries. We classify these institutions on a "hierarchical"/"collegial" scale, as a function of the existence of constraints on the deficit, and voting rules. We show that "hierarchical" and transparent...