This book analyzes political decentralization and fiscal federalism in Canada and Germany, both traditional federal countries, and in Spain, a unitarian country engaged in the last two decades in a process of decentralization. Three key issues required for a well designed financing system are...

This book, compiled from the 2nd Global Report of United Cities and Local Governments (UCLG) on Decentralization and Local Democracy, analyzes the architecture of fiscal decentralization in one hundred and ten countries as well as in major metropolitan areas. In the majority of these countries,...

Struggles over what a region receives, or should receive, from the budget of the central government are common to many countries. Discussions often focus on the measures of 'net fiscal flows' or 'fiscal balances' provided by the government or other actors. This unique book shows just how these...

Greening the Budget regards the fundamental cause of environmental degradation as government and market failure and proposes the use of budgets as an instrument of environmental policy to rectify this problem. The book focuses on the elements of the public budget which currently affect the...

The global financial crisis of 2007-09 constituted the biggest shock to the economies of the OECD nations since the Second World War, testing budgetary systems and causing most of their governments to move into intense crisis mode. Policy responses by governments and international authorities...

This book presents a comprehensive analysis of public expenditure control in Europe and the coordination strategies available. It provides a detailed scrutiny of the various audit systems in the EU and the difficulties in building consistency or harmony between them. The book demonstrates how...

Why is competition between institutions usually viewed in a negative light, when competition is considered positive in most other economic contexts? The contributors to this volume introduce new perspectives on this issue, analytically and empirically exploring reasons for this perception

In this book, Robert Boyer follows the origins, course and collapse of the "new economy" and proposes a new interpretation of US dynamism during the 1990s. He argues that the diffusion of information and communication technologies is only part of a story that also requires understanding of the...

Contents: Preface -- 1. Introduction and overview / Dongchul Cho, Takatoshi Ito and Andrew Mason -- Part I Aging, industry maturation and Japanization -- 2. Japanization: is it spreading to the rest of the world? / Takatoshi Ito -- 3. GDP growth from the perspective of demographic change: will...

Financial globalization has made monetary policy formulation in emerging market economies increasingly complicated. This timely set of studies looks at the turmoil in global financial markets, which coupled with volatile inflation poses serious challenges for central banks in these countries....